Grouper Moon Highlights!

Hello Grouper Experts!

I hope you have all enjoyed these posts of the Grouper Education Program!  The Grouper Moon Project has come to an end for the season.  It has been a joy to be a part of this incredible project and to be able to work with excellent students such as yourselves, and to be able to work with an amazing group of professionals from REEF and the DOE.  The following is a gallery of highlights and some “behind-the-scenes” photos.  Take a look!!

Spawning Bursts!

Hello Everyone!

It has been a couple days since my last blog post and as I was thinking of what I would write about, I realized I haven’t shown you any video footage of the actual spawning!?!  So, I asked the scientists for a montage of spawning bursts from the last two nights of spawning.  It is pretty amazing!  Take a look!

 

 http://vimeo.com/58681415

 

Pegasus Thruster

Hello Friends!

I got back to Seattle late last night after a long day of travel.  Not surprisingly, it is cold and cloudy in here.  I already miss Cayman!  However, I heard from Dr. Christy Semmens earlier and she says that the aggregation site continued to be quite busy again last night!!  They will be there for several more days observing and collecting data.

One of the new tools that was used during the project this year was a Pegasus Thruster.  I remember watching old Jacques Cousteau films on PBS as a child and seeing them zoom around underwater with what was basically a propeller with handles.  Well, this is a similar idea, however, it attaches to your air tank.  I thought they were pretty cool.  Watch Oregon State University’s Dr. Scott Heppell demonstrate:

Thruster Demo