[Coral-List] Piney Point Fish Count Reports

Greg Challenger GChallenger at msn.com
Fri Aug 15 12:10:35 EDT 2003


While it is good information, it would be nice to have a feel for natural variation. Over the last two years would indicate two "fall monitorings"; hence it would seem there can be no statistical conclusion of a striking loss of fish or reduced DO.   
----- Original Message -----
From: Todd Barber
Sent: Friday, August 15, 2003 6:54 AM
To: brian.keller at noaa.gov; Chuanmin Hu
Cc: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov; Multiple recipients of list BLACKWATER
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Piney Point Fish Count Reports

The Reef Ball Foundation has been, over the last two years, conducting fish
count surveys over artificial reefs in Manatee County.  On Wed of this week
we got in our fish counts from our "offshore" reefs which are 7 miles of the
coast of Manatee County.  Although one would hope that the Piney Point
dumping was too far away to cause an effect, we had a very striking loss of
fish....specifically speaking, our Fall monitorings have always reported
huge schools of baitfish (herring, etc) around the reefs and they were
completely absent.  All fish count population were significantly down or
absent.

Not to point the finger at Piney Point....there has also been some Red Tide
activity and higher than normal rainfall activities as well as reported
sewage overflows due to the rain in the county (any one of which or a
combination of which could be to blame).  As another note, we also recorded
the lowest D.O. levels offshore since we began surveying at 3.0 (we normally
average between 4-6) I just wanted to let folks know that something is
causing an unusual disturbance offshore in terms of fishery behavior.

Thanks,

Todd Barber
Chairman, Reef Ball Foundation, Inc.
President, Reef Ball Development Group, Ltd.
6916 22nd Street West
Bradenton, FL 34207
941-752-0169 (Office)
941-752-1033 (Fax)
941-752-0338 (Personal)
941-720-7549 (Cell when traveling)

reefball at reefball.com






----- Original Message -----  
From: "Brian Keller" <Brian.Keller at noaa.gov>
To: "Chuanmin Hu" <hu at seas.marine.usf.edu>
Cc: <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>; "Multiple recipients of list
BLACKWATER" <blackwater at seas.marine.usf.edu>
Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2003 5:14 PM
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Piney Point satellite report #2


> Thank you very much for preparing and distributing these reports. I would
> like to provide a clarification about the impact of the 2002 blackwater
> event on Keys coral reefs. The documented declines of live coral occurred
> at only two of the 43 sites monitored by the Coral Reef Monitoring
Project.
> The spatial extent of apparent blackwater impacts on reef communities was
> limited, probably mainly because there are few reefs in areas of the
> Sanctuary impacted by the blackwater event. At one of those sites (Content
> Keys off the north end of Big Pine Key), the decline was from very low
> pre-existing live-coral cover to even less live coral, i.e., the reef was
> nearly devoid of live coral before the purported impact of blackwater
> (monitoring is conducted annually, and there may have been impacts on live
> coral over that period in addition to blackwater).
>
> Chuanmin Hu wrote:
>
> > Dear all: our report #2 is ready at
> > http://imars.marine.usf.edu/Piney_Point/reports/
> > Also, (if you are not aware yet,) we have generated MODIS images in near
> > real-time (within 2 hours of satellite overpass) for many areas. Just
> > come to http://modis.marine.usf.edu and choose one area (say, West
> > Florida Shelf) and click on qc.html - you'll love it! The 250-m RGB
> > images are available for some estuaries, for example "Florida Bay" and
> > "Tampa Bay"
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Chuanmin Hu
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Coral-List mailing list
> > Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> > http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
>
> --
> Brian D. Keller
> Science Coordinator
> Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary
> P.O. Box 500368
> [Street address: 5550 Overseas Hwy., Main House]
> Marathon, FL 33050
>
> 305-743-2437 x25   fax 2357
> brian.keller at noaa.gov
> http://floridakeys.noaa.gov/
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Coral-List mailing list
> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list

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