Sunday was my day off. It was relaxing to do some
cooking, practice guitar, and cheer on England in the World Cup, but I prefer the action-packed days at the Trust!
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| Sugar Pie, our
furriest, most frequent visitor at the Trust / Sugar Pie, nuestra
visitante más frequente y peluda en el Fideicomiso |
First thing Monday morning I met the kids
of Manta Raya, the new camp for the next two weeks. The campers are 9-12
years old, and super engaged in what whatever we're learning. Right away
I recognized a couple of them either from saying hey in passing
on my way to work, or because they look like their younger siblings from
last week.
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| Mark teaching
about the balance of ecosystems, and the balance of life / Mark
enseñando sobre la balance de ecosistemas y la balance de la vida |
That day I went with Mark to pick up Ashley and
Chase, two students
from the University of Nebraska Kearney who came to Vieques for ten days to capture and
study lionfish, an invasive (and venomous) species here in the
Carribbean.
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| The lionfish. Photograph by Mark Martin, featured in Vieques Insider magazine / El pez león. Fotografía por Mark Martin. |
Lionfish reproduce every two weeks. (Just imagine for a
second if you did!) In order to manage that, they eat the native
fish like it's nobody's business. They have no natural
predators here, so they can totally throw off the delicate balance that
keeps coral reefs healthy. Since the fish and other creatures of the
reef are crucial for
our food supply and economy, not to mention valuable in their own right,
Ashley and Chase were doing pretty
important work!
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| Here's
Ashley and Chase! They also helped me painting some signs for the
aquarium. / ¡Aquí están Ashley y Chase! También me ayudaron pintar
algunos rotulos para el acuario. |
That week I also met Professor Marc Albrecht, Ashley's biology
professor and advisor who came to Vieques at the same time to work on
some other research projects. I learned a lot from him, like about the
alarming rate at which human are consuming the earth's resources.
We
sometimes think of nature as this big expanse of wilderness that exists
all over the world wherever there aren't towns and cities, but
Professor Albrecht pointed out that 75% of arable land is already in
human use. He showed me a great video called "The Story of Stuff," which
gives a big-picture view of where our stuff comes from, how we consume
it, and where it eventually goes when we throw it out. If you find
yourself with an extra 20 minutes to spare, I definitely think it's worth watching!
Story of Stuff Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GorqroigqM
Source: http://storyofstuff.org/
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| The
beautiful ceiba (kapok) tree that Professor Albrecht and I stopped to see on
our way to collecting some data in the mangroves of the Nature Reserve /
La gran ceiba que Professor Albrecht y yo vimos antes de tomar medidas
de las mangles |
It
can be a little depressing to take it all in once you start to delve
into human impacts on the planet. But Mark reminded me that while it can
be overwhelming, but we can't be defeatist; we won't get anywhere if we
throw up our hands and give up on protecting our natural resources. I
think both Professor Albrecht and Mark have valid points, because we
need to be more aware of the state that the earth while at the same time not losing
hope, so that we can make appropriate changes in how we live on it.
* * *
What
made that week at camp so fun, per usual at Manta, is that we learned about the environment not from textbooks or lectures, but from swimming, touching,
hiking, smelling, feeling, seeing, and
being in nature herself.
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| Learning how to enjoy the ocean responsibly / Aprendiendo como disfrutar el oceáno en una manera responsible |
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| A lesson about all the invasive algae out there / Una lección sobre las algas invasora |
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| Donning a stylish algae hat...with a few laughs from the crowd / Usando la alga como un sombrero...con unas risas por el público |
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| A lionfish that we caught at the beach/ El pez león que cojimos |
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| You can look, but you can't touch! / Se puede mirar, pero no se puede tocar! |
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| The newest
member of the aquarium (the lionfish, I mean, though I'd be happy to
have this guy at the Trust any day) / El miembro más nuevo del acuario
(el pez, quiero decir, auque estaría felíz tener este nene en el
Fideicomiso todos los días) |
|
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| An eel we
found for the aquarium, which was returned to the sea several days later
like all the other organisms we capture / Una anguila que encontramos
para el acuario, que fue devuelto al mar unos días después como los
demás de los ser vivos |
On Friday, my friend Annie (who made it into my first
blog post, and I can assure you this one will not be the last!) arrived
to visit me for the weekend. She jumped right in as a volunteer at
Manta, and was a huge help preparing for our activities that day.
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| A
lesson on water quality, scientific measurements, and the plankton of
the bioluminescent bay behind us / Una lección sobre la calidad de agua,
medidas científicos, y el plancton de la bahía bioluminiscente detrás
de nosotros. (Photo credits to Annie) |
|
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| A walk through the mangroves around the bio bay / Una caminata por los mangles alrededor de la bahía bioluminiscente |
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| Annie and I riding back from the bay in the back of a truck / Annie y yo viajabamos en una guagua al Fideicomiso |
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| Reading up about plankton / Leyendo sobre plancton |
Taking a look up close at the microorganisms of the bay / Mirando los microorganismos que viven en la bahía
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| Experimenting with bioluminescence / Experimentando con la bioluminiscencia |
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| Mind blown. / Increíble. |
* * *
Thursday
was the most amazing night on the bio bay I have seen yet. The water
literally glowed light blue in the wake it left when I stuck it in the
water outside the boat. If you scooped up some water in your hand, it
sparkled like little floating stars in your palm. When you threw the water away, the surface of the bay looked like it was being spattered with
shimmering rain drops.
http://youtu.be/oSP6IfLcm6s
Here's a few shots from the field:
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| #mangroves #selfie #sciencegeek |
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| Cool worm we found in the bio bay / Un gusano nitido que encontramos en la bahía |
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|
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| Field researchers Mark and Ashley in their natural habitat / Investigadores de campo Mark y Ashley en su hábitat natural |
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It's really difficult to capture the bioluminescence in a photograph, but we did record a Bio Bay Newsflash to update the community on the state of the bay!
Bioluminescent Bay Update
