What happens to the seahorses that you accidentally land in your trawl net?
By Stephen Cain, RJD Intern For millennia our ancestors fished the world’s oceans. Today’s fishing fleets are the most effective in all of human history, extracting ever-larger quantities of wild fishes. Only recently have scientists shown that seas are vulnerable to overexploitation, which can put species at extinction risk. Meanwhile, human population growth places increased […]
Can Marine Protected Areas Help Conserve Intertidal Species?
By Hannah Calich, RJD Graduate Student The giant limpet (Patella ferruginea; Figure 1) is one of the most endangered species in the Mediterranean Sea. As with many other marine species, their population decline has been attributed to overexploitation by humans. Giant limpets are most commonly harvested for food, fishing bait, or shell collection. Much of […]
Shark Tagging with an International French Highschool
By Julia Whidden, RJD Graduate Student C’était un vendredi fantastique à bord le navire du Divers Paradise avec nos nouveau amis d’une école secondaire en la France! (Translation: It was a fantastic Friday on board the Divers Paradise boat with our friends from a high school in France!) The RJD team met at Crandon Marina […]
Shark Tagging with Pine Crest School
By William Evans, RJD Intern I woke up on Thursday morning and saw that it was slightly overcast and drizzling. For more people, this would be a sign of a gloomy day inside but for me and the rest of the RJD crew, it was the perfect set up for a day of shark tagging. […]
Shark Tagging with Westminster Christian School
By Hannah Calich, RJD Graduate Student Last Friday the RJD team was joined by the fabulous students and teachers from Westminster Christian School for another day of shark tagging! The RJD team met at Crandon Marina at 8 am to begin loading up Divers Paradise. Despite the hurricane over the Bahamas, Miami’s coastal waters were […]
Conservation of Amsterdam Albatrosses
By Samantha Owen, RJD Intern This paper outlines the current conservation efforts for the Critically Endangered Amsterdam albatross (Diomedea amsterdamensis) and the threat posed by industrial longline fisheries. In 2007 a population survey estimated that there were only 167 Amsterdam albatrosses in the world. This is largely because they are only found in one place, […]