Most of the Grouper Moon team arrived in Little Cayman this afternoon. The driftwood terminal sign in Little Cayman is always a welcome reminder of this tiny island’s many charms.
The afternoon and evening were spent preparing for tomorrow’s first day of diving and the beginning of this year’s research. Collectively there were well over 20 luggage containers with gear and equipment that needed to be organized and prepared for the first day of diving tomorrow! Everything from GoPros to charge and set up, video equipment, sampling tools, dive gear, and the grouper tags (pictured above).
The grouper tags will be used to gain a population estimate of the size of the Nassau grouper aggregation at the spawning site. The 150 green tags will be used on Little Cayman and the pink tags will be used on Cayman Brac.
Tomorrow morning at 8 am is the ‘shake down’ dive. Our first priority- find the Nassau grouper! Once we have found where they are aggregating, the research team will dive in and begin collecting two primary types of footage – ‘Fish Faces’ and ‘Stereo Video.’
‘Fish Faces’ is used to obtain an estimate of the population size. The researchers obtain images of individual grouper ‘faces’ or the sides of the grouper. Each grouper has a pattern that is unique to only him or her, sort of like our fingerprints! Using a GoPro on a long selfie stick, we will take videos of as many fish as we can so that the researchers can use AI software to identify each fish.
The second method is called ‘Stereo Video.’ The Stereo Video is a specially designed device to take length measurements of the grouper. It is essentially a long stick with a GoPro on each end. This device is used to measure the length of different Nassau grouper at the spawning aggregation site. Length data is important because the larger the fish are, the more eggs the fish will have. Also, the fish get bigger as they get older, so this is one way to determine how the population of fish is growing.
We are all very excited for the first day of diving! Make sure to check back to find out how our first dive goes!