Central Caribbean Marine Institute (CCMI) officially kicks off their field season with a snorkel trip to Mary’s Bay, located on the NE side of Little Cayman, to do a preliminary search for juvenile Nassau groupers.

My name is Katie, and I’m the Conservation Coordinator at the CCMI. I live on Little Cayman Island and conduct my work from CCMI’s Little Cayman Research Centre. I am passionate about protecting the marine environment and love each and every one of my conservation projects here on LC!

Mary’s Bay Madness

Well, we’ve officially kicked off our field season today with a snorkel trip to Mary’s Bay, located on the northeast side of Little Cayman, to do a preliminary search for baby Nassau grouper.

The photo attached shows an aerial view of the east end of Little Cayman, with the arrow pointing to the east end of Mary’s Bay, where we conducted our searches. This time last year, we found numerous yearling juveniles in this area, like the one pictured below (photo by Jim Hellemn).

This year, we want to find out if a new batch of juveniles has settled in the bays surrounding Little Cayman as a result of the 2012 spawning event. Our first preliminary snorkel was conducted at the easternmost end of LC, near the “sunken barge”, picture attached.

We set out in teams of two to look for juveniles. Aside from myself, our fabulous grouper searchers included Heather and Jess, from CCMI’s education program, and Aly, a volunteer from Reef Divers. After searching for about 30 minutes, we only found two specimens, and they appeared to be roughly 250-300 mm in length, suggesting they were about two years old, based on published size-at-age data. It was time to move on to the next site!

Our second search was done further west, closer to the Mary’s Bay cut. Again, we split up to search, and in total found five more juvenile Nassau groupers, and yet again, they appeared to be about two years old. So overall, we didn’t find what appeared to be any new yearlings settled in Mary’s Bay…yet! We still have the west end of Mary’s Bay to search, plus five more sites to search on the island.

In addition to completing our first preliminary grouper survey of the year, we also spotted a juvenile lionfish, which Jess was able to catch to use for her upcoming master’s project!

Jess’s project will focus on determining whether or not there are any natural predators on lionfish in their invasive range. Good to know this little guy is off the reef and no longer feeding on our native Cayman fishes!

For more on this story go to:

http://littlecaymancoral.tumblr.com/post/39608499256/marys-bay-madness

Also go to the CCMI website at:

http://www.reefresearch.org/ccmi_website/home.htm