SUCCESS AT CARYSFORT
This past week, our team visited Ocean Reef Club® to discuss the progress we’ve made at Carysfort Reef. Restoration Program Manager Jessica Levy gave a presentation regarding our restoration efforts over the past four years at this iconic reef site made possible by members of Ocean Reef Club®. With their generous donation of one million dollars allocated over five years, we've already returned over 20,000 corals to Carysfort Reef, and will have returned a total of over 30,000 by the end of 2020.
CRF™ presentation slide shows progress on Carysfort Reef from Levy's talk.
© Coral Restoration Foundation™
Carysfort Reef is an iconic symbol of hope and resilience in the Florida Keys and Coral Restoration Foundation™ would like to thank Ocean Reef Club® for helping us restore this beacon for generations to come.
TIS THE SEASON FOR MAINTENANCE
While winter weather may make for rougher seas, our restoration team is taking the chance to give our equipment some TLC. This past week, our interns and restoration associates took the opportunity to perform routine maintenance on our equipment. This includes cleaning CRF™ vehicles and boats as well as checking tire pressures and additional moving parts.
Interns Sabine, Haley, Andrew, and Maria clean CRF™ vehicles (top and left). Restoration Associates Rebecca and Dan work in our outdoor facility (right).
© Coral Restoration Foundation™
Although it seems like a menial task, performing equipment maintenance is crucial to ensuring the safety of our team and the environment as well as the longevity of the equipment and tools we use on a daily basis.
Restoration Associates Andrew and Nikkie perform routine maintenance on a CRF™ trailer. © Coral Restoration Foundation™
As we were busy working, we also got to witness the return of Dusky! Dusky is one of our three restoration boats and is near and dear to our hearts here at CRF™. A few months ago, Dusky underwent some maintenance work for a new gas tank. With a crack in the old one, a new tank needed to be custom fitted. CRF™ now has our entire fleet back and just in time for the ideal diving weather coming up!
RESTORATION TAKES THE STAGE
As many of you may know from last week’s update in Talking Science, our Restoration Program Manager Jessica Levy took the stage to discuss CRF’s large-scale restoration efforts in 2020 at Sips & Science last month.
Sips & Science is a free monthly talk series hosted by Coral Restoration Foundation™. Over January and February 2020, we’re featuring the historic, large-scale restoration efforts happening in the Florida Keys! After last month's introduction of CRF's restoration plans in the coming year, Andy Bruckner will join us on Wednesday, February 26 to discuss Mission: Iconic Reefs.
Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (FKNMS) Research Coordinator Andy Bruckner will discuss the unprecedented strategy, outlined in Mission: Iconic Reefs, to return the Florida Reef Tract to a self-sustaining ecosystem. Join CRF™, FKNMS, and other collaborators on this journey to restore seven critical reef sites in the Florida Keys.
This effort calls for restoring 93,000 square meters of the Florida Reef Tract, about the size of 52 football fields, one of the largest strategies ever proposed in the field of coral restoration. Bruckner will discuss each phase of Mission: Iconic Reefs as well as funding for the project with a Q&A to follow.
As part of our commitment to reducing single-use plastics, we will fill any reusable cups with a complimentary glass of wine or water! If you are unable to attend, we will also be live-streaming the event from our Facebook page.
"Bringing It Back" Editorial Intern
Krista is from Quincy, Massachusetts and is a recent graduate of the University of North Carolina Wilmington with degrees in Marine Biology and Psychology as well as a minor in Neuroscience. She grew up on the ocean and first got the conservation bug when she watched as horseshoe crabs and seagrass beds near her home began to disappear. Throughout her undergraduate career, she took an interest in animal behavior and neurobiology and most recently conducted research in lifespan changes in the brains of sharks. She has worked closely with the New England Aquarium as an aquarist intern and conservation volunteer, as well as the National Estuarine Research Reserve in Homer, Alaska studying the foraging ecology of sea otters. In terms of diving, she got certified in high school but attributes her passion for the sport to her internship with the Boston Sea Rovers. Most recently, she obtained her PADI Divemaster certification as well as AAUS scientific diver and was proud to serve as the President of her university’s SCUBA Club. Krista is overjoyed to finally combine her passions of marine conservation, diving, and outreach to make lasting impacts on the local reef systems through her internship with the Coral Restoration Foundation™!