Concerns Regarding the Conch Fishery Snail Up
After the recent study was made public, the response has been overwhelming. See here and here.
Encouraging Comments on Conch Conservation
Encouraging comments from Agriculture and Marine Resources Minister Michael Pintard following the recent study on a potential collapse in the conch fishery. I met Minister Pintard recently when a Bahamian delegation visited North Carolina, and he was especially interested in our creek restoration research (see here and here for instance) and the involvement of Bahamian students in […]
Evolution of Beauty
Another interesting science article in the New York Times yesterday, exploring the evolution of beauty in animals. Want to know why those anoles running around The Bahamas have colorful throat “dewlaps”? This is the article to read.
(Photo from Graham Reynolds; some older posts about anoles here and here and here).
Serenaders of the Seas
A cool article in the New York Times about the complexity, and the real purpose, of humpback whale song. Much of the article is based on this paper that suggests potential “cultural revolutions” in humpback whale songs (paper summary below).
Reports of humpbacks on Abaco (here and here). I actually was fortunate to take a swim with […]
Will The Bahamas Have Conch in Twenty Years?
An excellent review paper on the status on the conch fishery in The Bahamas, based on research spanning more than 22 years. Much of this research associated with the organization Community Conch (www.communityconch.org). At the end of the paper find some specific management recommendations, and I include the Abstract below which provides a nice summary…
Broad-scale […]
Feeding Island Dreams
Happy New Year. Back from the holidays, we hope to ramp up our posting again.
Here is a new review paper on the potential of “agritourism” in The Bahamas. The authors broadly define this as “Agritourism, also referred to as agro-tourism, farm tourism or farm-based tourism, has a host of definitions but can be understood as a form of tourism […]
Rolling Harbour
We haven’t mentioned the Rolling Harbour website in some time. If you are not familiar with it, it is a nice site for Bahamas natural history observations. Check it out – here is the latest.
Droning On (In a Good Way)
Enie Hensel’s drone research featured by NCSU (story here and paper here). Nice job Enie! The paper Abstract to follow….
Large-bodied animals, megafauna, are disproportionately threatened and yet, remain relatively difficult to monitor. This is particularly true in the ocean. Consumer-grade drones have high definition imagery and offer a non-invasive way to monitor a subset of marine megafauna, especially […]
At the Nexus of People and Basic Science
Our own Jake Allgeier has a feature blog post in Science, the world’s foremost scientific journal (link here). Great to see his research and outreach in Haiti being recognized!
Illegal Harvest and Colonial Governance
Each summer NCSU professors Nils Peterson and Brian Langerhans teach a course at Forfar Field Station. As part of this course, they always include a sociological study on Andros. This year they looked at local peoples’ opinions on illegal harvesting and use their thoughts to speculate on some of the drivers of this issue. An easy […]