Reef and Fishery Assessment of Navassa Island National Wildlife Refuge

On April 23, 2009 scientists from the NOAA's Southeast Fisheries Science Center in Miami Florida (SEFSC) departed from San Juan, Puerto Rico aboard the NOAA Ship Nancy Foster. Their destination: the Navassa National Wildlife Refuge. Along with the NOAA scientists are researchers from the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (UM/RSMAS), the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), and the Director of the Fondation pour la Protection de la Biodiversité Marine (FoProBiM), an NGO based in Haiti.
This work is funded by the NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program.


Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Fish count update

Twelve RVC sites have been sampled on Monday and Tuesday with 24 fish count samples in total. A small colony of staghorn coral (Acropora cervicornis), pretty rare down here, was noticed during a habitat assessment and reported to Margaret. Most fishes seen have been small, as expected. The most common grouper seen are small species, the graysby and coney. A school of twelve 25 cm to 30 cm schoolmaster snapper was seen today. During that same dive three species of triggerfish were observed: queen triggerfish, ocean triggerfish and black durgon. Grunts are extremely rare here, but three French grunt have been observed. A few small barracuda have been seen, as well as some jacks. Fairy basslets (photo above), squirrelfishes, and planktivores such as the blue chromis and creole wrasse, are the most common fishes so far.

Dave Mc, Jack, Natalia (photo), Joe, Mike and Dave G.

1 comment:

  1. Way to go guys! Good to hear the Caribbean triggerfish are being spotted in the Caribbean. I personally miss those guys. Hope the trip continues to go well.

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