Clowning Around
Expedition Log: Maldives – Day 8 Ask anyone to name a fish found on a coral reef, and I almost guarantee most will reply “clownfish!” A fish made famous by Disney/Pixar’s 2003 film Finding Nemo. What most of these people …
Latest Posts
Sources of Starfish
Expedition Log: Maldives – Day 7 One of the most challenging questions we are regularly asked is where the crown of thorns starfish (COTS) come from. A reef can be unaffected for years or even decades and then suddenly thousands …
School’s out in the Maldives
Expedition Log: Maldives – Day 6 As a fish surveyor it is always exciting, sometimes daunting, to come across schools of fish in the thousands. We have seen huge schools of fish in other areas we surveyed on the Global …
Collecting Starfish from Sunrise ‘til Sunset
Expedition Log: Maldives – Day 5 The Living Oceans Foundation SCAR (Starfish Control and Removal) team is working at the Gili Lankanfushi atoll with other marine biologists from the Gili Lankanfushi resort. They have asked for our help removing and …
Stopping the Spread
Expedition Log: Maldives – Day 4 Whenever crown of thorns starfish (COTS) are reported, we never know if they will still be in the same location or how much they have moved. In part, this depends on how quickly a …
An id-eel reef
Expedition Log: Maldives – Day 3 On every dive we have done around Gili Lankanfushi we have seen dozens of moray eels. We have seen two species so far; the giant moray (Gymnothorax javanicus) and the honeycomb moray (Gymnothorax favagineus). We …
Gili Goes COTS Collecting
Expedition Log: Maldives – Day 2 In May of this year we began receiving emails from marine biologists based in the Maldives requesting assistance to manage the growing crown of thorns starfish (COTS) populations. Although COTS have been seen here …
Maldives: A Country of Contrast
Expedition Log: Maldives – Day 1 From the window of our airplane, I gaze in amazement at the expanse of high rise buildings crowded onto the tiny, low lying Indian Ocean island of Male, the capital of Maldives. Home to …
A Reflection on Mangrove Education & Restoration in the Caribbean
Time has gone really fast and we are already wrapping up the first installation of the Caribbean mangrove education and restoration programs in The Bahamas and Jamaica. We couldn’t have managed these efforts without the help of our partners from …
J.A.M.I.N., Take Two!
I’m back in Jamaica and I’m ready to implement the J.A.M.I.N. project. Last year, we initiated the pilot program in two high schools in Jamaica and it was a huge success. My colleague, Camilo Trench from the University of the …