Bermuda Zoological Society’s “Reef Watch”
[Updated] The Bermuda Zoological Society is hosting a “Reef Watch” on Saturday, August 31, which is designed to raise funds for reef conservation. Boats will depart at 12 noon, and the field report and dinner will take place at Barr’s Park from 4pm to 7pm.
The organisers said, “Enter your boat and a 4-person snorkel team to study our coral reefs. Reef Watch will train you to recognize key fish and corals. Training scheduled at the Aquarium on either 27th or 28th August.
“Each vessel contributes $500 to coral reef research. The funds will support data collection and analysis. The $500 can be paid by the participants or raised from pledges to support the project.”
Update Aug 20, 2.23pm: In response to comments, BZS President Richard Winchell said, “Thanks for sharing your concerns on the $500 donation for Reef Watch, this is the first year for this programme and your comments and feedback help us develop Reef Watch as an effective community fundraising programme.
“This project began as an attempt to address the loss of funding supporting scientists monitoring the health of our reef system. The $500 raised per entry will go directly to support reef monitoring by scientists and interns, thus supporting our conservation and education mission.
“We suggest 4 team members per boat and we have encouraged each team to make a personal donation, and to encourage friends and colleagues to sponsor their boat to raise the $500 donation. If the $125 per person in a 4 person boat is expensive perhaps send an email around the office, or to friends, inviting them to sponsor you. Involving others increases awareness of the value and importance of a healthy reef.
“Over the past few years an enormous body of reef baseline data has been collected by the BREAM team, and with the Reef Watch programme the Bermuda Zoological Society is supporting an annual community reef check by volunteers, collecting the data, raising community awareness and participation, and raising funds to support ongoing research. The volunteer training, the reefs chosen and the protocols followed have been developed by Dr Thad Murdoch of BREAM, to ensure the data collected will have scientific value.”
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Category: All, Environment
Great concept but you want us to do your job, contribute our time and energy to survey reef AND pay $500 per boat. You should be paying us!
Exactly! Contribute your time to make it happen AND sponsor it too?
If you’re doing the data collection, what do they spend the money on?
What actually happens with the data that’s collected on the day? And what of the data that’s been collected all along? I believe it’s good to know the condition of the reef but who owns the data and how it it put to use for Bermuda?
The $500 sponsorship fee per boat is okay if you have a huge boat like the dive shops or a catamaran but you are asking for that per boat and I still have to take a day off, have my friends contribute to the fee and fuel to go out and collect data that goes.. where?
At the end of it all, who gets the money and who owns the data? The Aquarium or BREAM?
The main goal of ReefWatch is to teach the Bermuda public how to recognise healthy vs sick reefs or fish populations so we can better care for the seas around us.
The public will have access to all data via http://www.bermudabream.org and http://www.bamz.org.
For an in-depth explanation of ReefWatch please see:
http://bermudabream.blogspot.fr/2013/07/reef-watch-empowering-citizens-to.html
The donations will support qualified Bermudian research scientists who will supplement ReefWatch citizen-scientist data with more complex scientific data collection and analysis. ALL data from both sources will be publicly available.
I have noticed all the fire coral along Harbor road is dead , you can have that for free.
Dr. Murdoch, your work and idea are good but whoever thought up the $500 fee per boat to participate should be fired. Groundswell’s lionfish tournament, with a small per person fee had been a successful model for years and is one you should have followed here.
If I owned a small craft, my wife and I would not take the boat out all day, spend money on gas, get our dive tanks filled, survey reef AND pay $250 per person. That does not include the time to sit in on the classes to be sure we do what you want us to to correctly. I could bring two friends along, but that’s still $125 per person.
There are a lot of eyes on this event and it’ll be interesting to see how it all pans out. There are people that sincerely want to help, but in these hard economic times, sure, you need to raise funds for your project due to cuts and what not, but I have to pay BELCO and feed my family. Do what you can within your means.
We’ll likely take the classes, come to the party and do surveys for you after the 31st of August when I can, for free.
Richard, good reply. My $125 is going towards my lobster license. With the season starting the next day, good idea, bad timing. Charging $500 per boat is a FAIL.