Since today is Earth Day, my colleagues and I decided to organize an underwater clean up of some natural hardbottom habitat off the coast of Naples. I partnered with the Collier County Sheriff's office, City of Naples Natural Resources Department and Collier County's Coastal Zone Management Department. Based on some previous dives, we knew the area had debris on it. The visibility wasn't great, but then again its the Gulf of Mexico, what do you expect?!! Regardless, it was great to be underwater for a good cause. We ended up removing several anchors, two crab traps, ropes, and fishing line. Although I didn't go out there to specifically monitor fish, I did see the following species: Goliath, gag, and red groupers (not many of them though), mangrove snapper, sheepshead, white grunt, sand perch, belted sandfish, porkfish, spadefish, lookdown, hogfish, inshore lizzardfish, cubbyu, some type of pipefish, and tiger goby. Inverts included variegated and rock boring urchins, fighting conchs, horse conch, banded and orange-ridged sea stars, three-rowed sea cucumber, giant anemone, knobby star coral, cup coral, tube coral, some kind of starlet coral, sea whips, sea fans, and several species of tunicates and sponges. I don't expect National Geographic to be calling me anytime soon for my photographs, but I did take several. Enjoy!
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| There were several soft and hard corals on the natural hardbottom today. |
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| three-rowed sea cucumber |
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| Giant Anemone |
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| Horse conch laying eggs |
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| Lightning whelk crawling across the bottom |
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| Spadefish |
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| Spottail pinfish |
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| Several kinds of tunicates were all over the reefs. |
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| Pamela Keyes with Collier County's Coastal Zone Management Department removes lines from the reef. |
Since today is Earth Day, my colleagues and I decided to organize an underwater clean up of some natural hardbottom habitat off the coast of Naples. I partnered with the Collier County Sheriff's office, City of Naples Natural Resources Department and Collier County's Coastal Zone Management Department. Based on some previous dives, we knew the area had debris on it. The visibility wasn't great, but then again its the Gulf of Mexico, what do you expect?!! Regardless, it was great to be underwater for a good cause. We ended up removing several anchors, two crab traps, ropes, and fishing line. Although I didn't go out there to specifically monitor fish, I did see the following species: Goliath, gag, and red groupers (not many of them though), mangrove snapper, sheepshead, white grunt, sand perch, belted sandfish, porkfish, spadefish, lookdown, hogfish, inshore lizzardfish, cubbyu, some type of pipefish, and tiger goby. Inverts included variegated and rock boring urchins, fighting conchs, horse conch, banded and orange-ridged sea stars, three-rowed sea cucumber, giant anemone, knobby star coral, cup coral, tube coral, some kind of starlet coral, sea whips, sea fans, and several species of tunicates and sponges. I don't expect National Geographic to be calling me anytime soon for my photographs, but I did take several. Enjoy!
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