Category Archives: Research Programs

Research Assistant Project Update – Brendan Talwar

December 11, 2012 ceiblogger

Brendan Talwar, research assistant for the Shark Conservation and Education Program, has been working on a research project during his time at CEI. Here he describes his research:

My research focuses on the use of unbaited video cameras placed in the mouth of tidal creek
systems. I’m using this method to investigate the behavioral ecology of elasmobranchs, focusing on the lemon shark (Negaprion brevirostris). These sharks enter mangrove creek systems during incoming tide to seek refuge from predators, as well as to forage among the mangrove prop roots.Given the plight of shark populations worldwide, and the lack of non-invasive methods of population assessment, the use of unbaited video in coastal ecosystems will lay the groundwork for completely hands off research techniques in the future.

Outreach, Research Programs, Student Research

28th Research Symposium recently held at the Cape Eleuthera Island School

December 5, 2012 ceiblogger

This past Saturday, December 1^st, marked CEI’s 28^th Research Symposium. During the Symposium, Island School students got the chance to showcase the culmination of a semester’s worth of research to a large audience. Visiting scientists, local community members, government officials, and representatives of Bahamian NGOs were all present for the event. The list of guests included members of REEF, BREEF, Friends of the Environment, Community Conch, The Nature Conservancy, Bahamas National Trust (BNT), and Fisheries Conservation Foundation. We also had the Honorable Kendred Dorset, Minister of The Environment and Housing, as our keynote speaker! There were presentations on topics ranging from queen conch conservation and the lionfish invasion to the effects of climate change on bonefish and sea turtle habitat use. Students gave presentations, followed by poster sessions, where visitors had one on one time with the research groups to ask questions on the projects and their larger implications.

The symposium allowed a chance for guests to learn about the great work being done at CEI. After the poster sessions, the students got a chance to hear from some prominent guest speakers. Eric Carey, Executive Director of BNT, encouraged the students and audience members to stay passionate in their goals of marine conservation and sustainable living. Dr. Sandy Mactaggart, Chancellor Emeritus at the University of Alberta, then spoke, telling an inspiring story to the students to emphasize the importance of innovation in problem-solving, a skill that students acquire in their semester at The Island School. Continue reading →

Sharks

Historic Bahamian Shark Abundance Project Update #2

December 4, 2012 ceiblogger 1 Comment

The Historic Project shark team went out to “the bridge” November 21^st and 25-28^th and camped out at Half Moon Cay for their third exciting expedition. The data analysis is currently ongoing, but there were several highlights from the trip. While hauling the gear after a scientific longline set, the shark team witnessed an estimated 2.5 m (8 ft) blue shark free swimming alongside the boat! It was a first for everyone on board to see a blue shark, and came as quite a surprise as blue sharks typically prefer deeper, cooler waters. On a different set the team witnessed another new species – this time up close and personal as a 1.8 m (6 ft) shortfin mako shark was hooked on the line! And as if those species weren’t enough, the shark team caught their biggest shark of the three expeditions, a 4.1 m (13.5 ft) long tiger shark! It was a successful final November expedition, with the data starting to show some interesting trends. A big thank you goes out to everyone at Half Moon Cay for providing food and a warm shower at the end of the day.

Research Programs, Student Research

Parents’ Weekend Fall 2012

December 3, 2012 ceiblogger

This November, CEI was flooded with over 100 guests as The Island School hosted Parents’ Weekend for all 45 students. The week was full of tours around campus, a student art show, parent-teacher meetings, and plenty of free time for students to show their families the island of Eleuthera. One of the many highlights of the week came when students could share their semester research projects with their families and other members of the Foundation.

For the research presentations during Parents’ Weekend, each group had 10 minutes to give an introduction to their project, explain their hypotheses, describe the methodology and results, and share the conclusions they came to from their data. In addition, each group faced a firing squad of questions from curious parents about their topics. The parents learned a lot about a predator’s effect on the growth rate of young juvenile lemon sharks, how climate change might affect the metabolic rates of fish in mangrove creeks, and the invasion of the voracious lionfish. Continue reading →

Aquaculture, Sustainable Systems

Fall 2012 Cobia Harvest

November 29, 2012 ceiblogger

For the first time in almost 3 years the aquaculture team is harvesting fish from their offshore cage! The fish will be eaten in the Island School’s dining hall as a demonstration of a community-based aquaculture program that is focused on producing local food, while also reducing fishing pressure on wild fish stocks around South Eleuthera. We all ate cobia for breakfast on Thursday! All of the harvested fish carcasses will be used to make silage that will eventually be used to make tilapia and pig food. This is an attempt to produce as little “waste” as possible, and a way to utilize all of the nutrients that are lost after the fish is filleted as a way to produce more food.

As you may remember, CEI outfitted the offshore cage with Predator-X netting that was donated by the materials company DSM, www.dsm.com, and the net production company Net-Systems, www.net-systems.com. We are happy to announce that this netting did survive shark predation attempts, showing minimal damage from any shark bites it did endure. The netting, in conjunction with adequate cage maintenance (such as removal of any dead fish and regular cleaning) is the answer to the aquaculture program’s major problem of fish escapement, and will lead to yearly cobia growouts and year-round harvest.

Continue reading →

Sharks

Another expedition starts for the Historic Bahamian Shark Abundance Project

November 26, 2012 ceiblogger 1 Comment

November marks the beginning of CEI’s Shark Research and Conservation Program’s third field expedition for the Historic Bahamian Shark Abundance Project. Led by Shark Research and Conservation Program Director, Edd Brooks, and Jeff Stein, Senior Research Scientist from the University of Illinois, the project is replicating a series of fisheries-independent longline surveys, which took place over 30 years ago, from 1975-1982.The original dataset was collected by Captain Stephen Connett of the vessel R/V Geronimo, which conducted the initial surveys on the shallow bank known as “the bridge,” that connects the southern tip of Eleuthera to the northern tip of Cat Island. The initial surveys documented a total of six species, however the majority of the catch was dominated by tiger sharks (Galeocerdo cuvier) at 54% of the catch, and Caribbean reef sharks (Carcharhinus perezi) at 33%.

Funding for four expeditions to the bridge was obtained in 2011 and to date two have been completed. Preliminary analysis of data from the previous expeditions (November 2011, March 2012) is already providing us with some valuable results. After 12 scientific longline sets the crew has caught 84 sharks from three species and has documented a shift in the assemblage compared to the historical dataset. Now, Caribbean reef sharks represent 67% of the catch and tiger sharks only 31%. Continue reading →

Aquaponics, Sustainable Systems

Prawns + Aquaponics = Three Course Meal!

November 23, 2012 ceiblogger

The aquaponics system at CEI produces enough lettuce to feed our community twice a day, seven days a week. The fish production is increasing in the next year, and provides one meal a week of fresh tilapia. Right now the system is good, but does have a few minor opportunities for improvement. One issue we are facing is an over-abundance of solid waste settling out at the bottom of our deep water hydroponic beds. One way to solve this “problem” is to install additional filters which would have to be purchased, shipped, installed, and run on electricity. The filters would use more fresh water to clean, and require more time and maintenance. This isn’t the ideal solution when we are trying to reduce imports, simplify operations, maintain affordability, and conserve water.

We instead looked for a permaculture way of solving the solid waste issue, and found one!Last Friday a shipment arrived at Governors Harbor Airport of three small boxes from a company in Florida called Miami-Aquaculture Inc. Inside the three boxes were approximately 2,000 post-larval giant freshwater prawns (Macrobrachium rosenbergii) which can grow to twelve inches in length in just one year. Continue reading →

Lionfish

Lionfish Program Update

November 19, 2012 ceiblogger

October was a packed and exciting month for CEI’s Lionfish Research and Education Program (LREP). A new study tagging lionfish in a novel way is currently happening at CEI. This monitoring technique can help us track when, where, and how the lionfish are spawning. The hopes are that in the future we will be able to more effectively reduce population sizes.

Dr. Lad Akins, director of the Reef Environmental Education Foundation (REEF), spent a week at CEI to help make this project happen. Under his direction, accompanied by new LREP manager Dr. Jocelyn Curtis-Quick and interns, several acoustic receivers were placed at the edge of the Exuma Sound. Divers previously scouted this area to identify hotspots, or areas where several lionfish were found together, to place these receivers. After the receivers were set up, lionfish were captured to place tags inside their guts. This required underwater surgery on the lionfish, a procedure that had never been done before. Previously, when fish had been tagged, they had to be brought to the surface. Continue reading →

Flats, Student Research

New shuttle box trials being conducted at CEI

November 13, 2012 ceiblogger

CEI recently started performing shuttle box experiments in the wet lab. The set-up of the shuttle box system is simple: two tanks are connected through a short “walkway”, and above the tanks a camera is mounted to monitor the fish movements, with little human interference on fish behavior.The shuttle box trials complement the critical temperature experiments that the Flats team wrapped up in early October 2012. These experiments tested the range of temperatures that a fish can tolerate before losing equilibrium, and are used to study how the projected conditions for climate change will affect fish in the flats ecosystems.

The shuttle box comes provides a unique aspect while studying effects of climate change, by adding a behavioral decision-factor element to the study. Trials will be run using one the common mangrove prey species (bonefish, yellowfin mojarra, yellowtail snapper and checkered puffer) in one of the two tanks and a mangrove predator (juvenile lemon shark) in the other tank. Then, the environmental conditions in the prey tank are manipulated to an unfavorable level (i.e. high temperature) and the fish is viewed on the cameras to see when it decides that being in the same tank as the lemon shark, with the threat of predation, is preferred to unfavorable environmental conditions. Continue reading →

Flats, Outreach, Uncategorized

CEI researchers and affiliates meet with members of the Bahamian government to discuss marine conservation

November 9, 2012 ceiblogger

CEI researcher Aaron Shultz along with Fisheries Conservation Foundation chair Dave Philipp, Illinois Natural History Survey Fisheries Biologist Julie Claussen, and a young member of the CEI boathouse staff Mally Goodman, took a break from their bonefish tagging efforts to meet with the Prime Minister and the Environmental Ministry of the Bahamas at Deep Water Cay, Grand Bahama on Thursday. Aaron spoke to the group about conservation, and showed a slideshow on the research and tagging project currently being conducted on Abaco. Prime Minister Perry Christie talked pointedly on the importance of protecting the natural resources of the The Bahamas, as well as increasing research and education.

Many officials from the Bahamian government and members of the press attended the event, serving as great exposure for the Cape Eleuthera Institute, The Island School, Fisheries Conservation Foundation and Bonefish Tarpon Trust. The word is spreading on some of the work that CEI researchers are doing, great work guys!

Education, Research, Outreach