Archive for November, 2011
Posted: 14 Nov 2011 04:57 PM PST
Reef Relief is the proud new owner of an HP color printer thanks to the generosity of Coldwell Banker Schmidt Real Estate in Marathon. The company discovered that Reef Relief needed the printer on KeysReuse.com, which lists the needs of 26 non-profits. Pictured with the printer and supplies are Millard McCleary and Rudy S. Bonn [...]
Don’t throw it away – Give it away!
Now you can donate your used items to people who really need them. Whether you have old sheets and towels or a discarded computer monitor, a musical instrument your child no longer plays or a bulletin board stored in a box somewhere, there’s probably a non-profit group in the Keys that can put it to good use. Your possessions will now be ReUsed.
How KeysReuse.com works:
Take a look at the pages on this site. We list everything from appliances to school supplies and many things in between. Perhaps you’ll see something that you have that has been sitting in storage. If you click on the item you’ll find out which non-profit group needs that very thing.
Then send the non-profit group an email or call to see how you can best deliver it.
In this way everyone wins. You dispose of something that has been cluttering up your house. The non-profit gets something it really needs. And we all keep these things from sitting in the dump for hundreds of years.
Margaritaville presents a $10,439 donation to Reef Relief’s Exe. Director Mill McCleary. This donation was made possible through the purchase of t-shirts and a raffle at the Meeting of the Minds 2011. Thanks to all the Parrotheads & Margaritaville for selecting Reef Relief and coral reef conservation for your annual charity fundraising at the 20th Meeting of the Minds.
Reception at the 2011 Wild & Scenic Film Festival
The 2011 SYRCL’s Wild & Scenic Film Festival hosted by Reef Relief was a great success. This festival hopes to inspire people and unite communities to take action to protect their local Wild & Scenic places. This is the second year that Reef Relief has been able to host the Wild and Scenic Film Festival here in Key West. Thanks to our local sponsors the Saltwater Angler, Clearly Unique Charter, Debora Designs, Inc., Dancing Dolphins Spirit Charters and the Tropic Cinema.
Michael Sheilds opens the 2011 Wild & Scenic Film Festival
The University of Oregon’s Institute of Marine Biology announces the on-line release of marine science lessons developed as part of its National Science Foundation Graduates in K-12 grant.
The following link http://pages.uoregon.edu/oimb/Academics/GK12/ leads you to:
1. Background on OIMB’s GK12 program
2. Lessons sorted by habitat
3. Resources including links to additional curriculum, photo and video libraries, ocean literacy standards, on-line marine education communities, etc.
Although our GK12 program targeted k-6th grades, many of these lessons are adaptable for older students.
Learn more about ocean literacy
NOVEMBER 15, 2011
Watercolors is a compelling and riveting true story about the rescue of JJ the Whale, a day old gray whale that was found abandoned in Marina del Rey, California. Tamminen tells an educational, moving, and remarkable story as he takes us through his incredible journey and the set-backs he encountered. But most importantly, this book is a call to action: although we may not all have the chance encounter of meeting and directly saving a baby whale, our actions and decisions that we make on a daily basis are affecting these mysteriously beautiful creatures.
Help support Reef Relief by purchasing Terry Tamminen’s latest book Watercolors: How JJ the Whale Saved Us, a compelling and riveting true story about the rescue of JJ the Whale. For each book purchased through the Watercolors website, $5.00 will be donated to our organization.
Visit www.watercolorsthebook.com/Purchase.html and be sure to choose our organization from the drop down menu.
Makes a great holiday gift!
By Victoria Gill Science reporter, BBC Nature
Loggerhead turtles take almost half a century to reach maturity, say scientists.
A female turtle, the researchers report in the journal Functional Ecology, will not start to lay eggs until she is 45.This estimate, based on examination of several decades of data on the turtles’ growth, has implications for conservation efforts.It reveals how long it takes for turtles hatched at a protected nesting site to return to that site to breed.
“Previous estimates of their age at maturity are all over the place – spanning from 10 years to 35 years”
Prof Graeme Hays from the University of Swansea, one of the authors of the study, explained how reaching maturity so slowly meant that the turtle population was “less resilient” than previously thought.
“The longer an animal takes to reach maturity, the more vulnerable the population is to [man-made] causes of mortality,” said Prof Hays.
This, he explained, was because there was a much higher chance of an individual animal being killed – for example, by being deliberately or accidentally caught in a fishing net – before it had been able to “replace itself” by breeding. Read the full story
photo:NOAA
There will be a shoreline cleanup this Saturday on Big Coppit with Reef Relief, Monroe County Recycling, T.R.A.SH.E.D. in the Keys and Waste Management. If you would like to help out this weekend, we will have about ten kayaks available for the canal/boat access areas and there is also lots of work to be done along Avenue F and Barcelona where the boat ramp is located on the north end of the street. We’ll have water for volunteers, but suggest you bring your own gloves and hat. Please check in at Big Coppit Park on Avenue F next to the church.
Please RSVP to Reef Relief at 305-294-3100 or reefrelief@gmail.com.
Jeremy Hance. mongabay.com . November 03, 2011
Researchers with the Smithsonian have catalogued almost as many crab species on tropical coral reef bits measuring just 20.6 square feet (6.3 square meters) as in all of Europe’s seas, finds a new paper in PLoS ONE. The team used DNA barcoding to quickly identify a total of 525 crustaceans (including 168 crab species) from dead coral chunks taken from seven sites in the tropics, including the Indian, Pacific and Caribbean oceans.
By David Fleshler. Sun Sentinel. Thursday, Nov. 3, 2011
They are whimsical symbols of the beach, appearing on key chains, murals, logos and postcards. They form inseparable, monogamous couples. And they are hauled from the sea in nets, ground into powder for traditional Chinese medicine and dried for sale in souvenir shops.
The world’s four dozen or so species of seahorse have had a rough time of the last few decades, as coastal development, international trade and commercial fishing took their toll. Read the full article
