Category: Blog
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Cuba Journal: Day 6 – The hunt
Day 6: Wednesday 1 June Sometime in the afternoon. Siesta time actually—all quiet at the Avalon compound. But no siesta for us. James and I are back at the “lab” after a largely fruitless search among the shallow Porites coral patches of the backreef for the particular sponge we know to harbor social shrimp here,…
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Cuba journal: Day 5 – Quiet
Day 5: Tuesday 31 May Quarter past midnight, end of a long day on the water and in the lab that started at 0600. Sitting in the quiet breezy night on the narrow concrete back deck of the dorm (not a proper lab as this is really a dive and fishing operation), creaking boat ropes…
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Cuba Journal: Day 4 – Pipin reef
Day 4: Monday 30 May This morning we dive at a site known as “Pipin” after the famous Cuban free diver. I am snorkeling and the day begins disappointingly since the buoy is in 15 m of water and overcast skies and somewhat murky water mean I can barely make out the bottom. But a…
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Forensic fisheries scientist Courtney Cox makes waves in Belize
Bruno lab PhD student Courtney Cox was all over the news in Belize Tuesday. There was a media frenzy about her work on fraud in the the Belize seafood industry and the poaching of parrotfish in Belize waters, where they are now protected. From News7Belize: In this coastal country – it’s hard to find anyone…
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Cuba Journal: Day 3 – The Octopus Cave
Day 3: Sunday 29 May Fantastic dives and natural history today. We are scouting sites for Abel’s dissertation project examining impacts of sharks on the reef community, so targeting sites where sharks are abundant. This area, the Jardines de la Reina (“Gardens of the Queen”), is widely considered to be among the most pristine sites…
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Cuba journal: Day 2 – by Land and by Sea
[Number 2 in a continuing series] Day 2: Saturday 28 May Up at 0400 again, this time to meet the bus for the long, slow drive across Cuba to our port. Traveling east by bus in the misty humid sunrise across the flat agrarian landscape of Cuba. Endless fields, most apparently fallow, fencerows of sticks…
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Cuba journal: Day 1 – arrival in Havana
Prologue [A few weeks ago, four of us set out for the pristine reefs of Cuba on a marine biological expedition. Following is the first in a series of daily journal entries from the trip.] Our party consisted of John Bruno and Abel Valdivia of UNC Chapel Hill, myself from VIMS, and James Kealey of…
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WOW – did you see them? they must be scientists!
[This guest post comes from VIMS graduate students Lindsey Kraatz, Sam Lake, Daniel Maxey, and Stephanie Salisbury] Have you ever walked down a street and seen someone so big, so athletic looking that you instantly thought to yourself “WOW, they must be a football player, they’re huge!”? What about a high-class businessman or a runway…
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More on the Shark Conservation Act
An analysis of the act from the amazing Southern Fried Science with some good comments here. David Shiffman is a shark expert and writes the Why Sharks Matter feature on SFS, which has the best coverage of shark conservation on the web , eg, here and here. Also watch a recent talk David gave on his shark research…
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Overfishing 101
Lee Crocket, of the Pew Environmental Group, has two good articles in the Huff Post about overfishing. The first Why Ending Overfishing Pays Off in the Long Run The second, Why Ending Overfishing Is Good for Both Fish and Fishermen Alike