bleaching and blasting in RMI

[Silvia Pinca]

Helloa ll,

just a quick sad note about corals in the Marshalls. We now witnessed at
least two bleaching events (a third one is probably happening now) off the
shores of MAjuro atoll (7 degree N), both lagoon and ocean side, attacking
Acroporas (at least cerealis and robusta and maybe nana) on the reef shelf.
These corals are briefly exposed at low tide (new moon) when we experienced
very high atmospheric temperatures coincident with  lack of trade winds.

The corals that belached in September are now dead and covered with a green
film of algae.

Some of the recently bleached ones are sometimes britteling down into
pieces.

Evidence of bleaching in another atoll (Jaluit, south west of Majuro)
induces us to think this is a spread out event.

We also found evidence of blast-fishing on the ocean side.

All these news are recent and quite shocking for this country.

Thank you,

Silvia Pinca and Dean Jacobson

Silvia Pinca, Ph.D.
Marine Science Program Coordinator
College of the Marshall Islands
P.O. Box 1258, Majuro, MH 96960
ph. (692)-625-5903
milviapin at yahoo.com
www.geocities.com/milviapin

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