[Coral-List] Piney Point Fish Count Reports
C. HU
hu at seas.marine.usf.edu
Sat Aug 16 13:58:38 EDT 2003
It must be rainfall caused runoff - at Todd's location color is much
darker than usual (the dark band, parallel to the coast, is about 40 km
wide), and SeaWiFS "chlorophyll" is > 16 mg/m^3 (normally it is less
than 2 mg/m^3). Of course SeaWiFS "chlorophyll" has a lot of
uncertainties in this region (most of the signal may be due to dissolved
matter for this runoff), but this high contrast explains a lot. Plus,
this site is away from the Mississippi plume. Chuanmin
Greg Challenger wrote:
> While it is good information, it would be nice to have a feel for
> natural variation. Over the last two years would indicate two "fall
> monitorings"; hence it would seem there can be no statistical
> conclusion of a striking loss of fish or reduced DO.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Todd Barber
> Sent: Friday, August 15, 2003 6:54 AM
> To: brian.keller at noaa.gov; Chuanmin Hu
> Cc: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov; Multiple recipients of
> list BLACKWATER
> Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Piney Point Fish Count Reports
> The Reef Ball Foundation has been, over the last two years,
> conducting fish
> count surveys over artificial reefs in Manatee County. On
> Wed of this week
> we got in our fish counts from our "offshore" reefs which
> are 7 miles of the
> coast of Manatee County. Although one would hope that the
> Piney Point
> dumping was too far away to cause an effect, we had a very
> striking loss of
> fish....specifically speaking, our Fall monitorings have
> always reported
> huge schools of baitfish (herring, etc) around the reefs and
> they were
> completely absent. All fish count population were
> significantly down or
> absent.
>
> Not to point the finger at Piney Point....there has also
> been some Red Tide
> activity and higher than normal rainfall activities as well
> as reported
> sewage overflows due to the rain in the county (any one of
> which or a
> combination of which could be to blame). As another note,
> we also recorded
> the lowest D.O. levels offshore since we began surveying at
> 3.0 (we normally
> average between 4-6) I just wanted to let folks know that
> something is
> causing an unusual disturbance offshore in terms of fishery
> behavior.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Todd Barber
> Chairman, Reef Ball Foundation, Inc.
> President, Reef Ball Development Group, Ltd.
> 6916 22nd Street West
> Bradenton, FL 34207
> 941-752-0169 (Office)
> 941-752-1033 (Fax)
> 941-752-0338 (Personal)
> 941-720-7549 (Cell when traveling)
>
> reefball at reefball.com
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Brian Keller" <Brian.Keller at noaa.gov>
> To: "Chuanmin Hu" <hu at seas.marine.usf.edu>
> Cc: <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>; "Multiple recipients
> of list
> BLACKWATER" <blackwater at seas.marine.usf.edu>
> Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2003 5:14 PM
> Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Piney Point satellite report #2
>
>
> > Thank you very much for preparing and distributing these
> reports. I would
> > like to provide a clarification about the impact of the
> 2002 blackwater
> > event on Keys coral reefs. The documented declines of live
> coral occurred
> > at only two of the 43 sites monitored by the Coral Reef
> Monitoring
> Project.
> > The spatial extent of apparent blackwater impacts on reef
> communities was
> > limited, probably mainly because there are few reefs in
> areas of the
> > Sanctuary impacted by the blackwater event. At one of
> those sites (Content
> > Keys off the north end of Big Pine Key), the decline was
> from very low
> > pre-existing live-coral cover to even less live coral,
> i.e., the reef was
> > nearly devoid of live coral before the purported impact of
> blackwater
> > (monitoring is conducted annually, and there may have been
> impacts on live
> > coral over that period in addition to blackwater).
> >
> > Chuanmin Hu wrote:
> >
> > > Dear all: our report #2 is ready at
> > > http://imars.marine.usf.edu/Piney_Point/reports/
> > > Also, (if you are not aware yet,) we have generated
> MODIS images in near
> > > real-time (within 2 hours of satellite overpass) for
> many areas. Just
> > > come to http://modis.marine.usf.edu and choose one area
> (say, West
> > > Florida Shelf) and click on qc.html - you'll love it!
> The 250-m RGB
> > > images are available for some estuaries, for example
> "Florida Bay" and
> > > "Tampa Bay"
> > > Cheers,
> > >
> > > Chuanmin Hu
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Coral-List mailing list
> > > Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> > > http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
> >
> > --
> > Brian D. Keller
> > Science Coordinator
> > Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary
> > P.O. Box 500368
> > [Street address: 5550 Overseas Hwy., Main House]
> > Marathon, FL 33050
> >
> > 305-743-2437 x25 fax 2357
> > brian.keller at noaa.gov
> > http://floridakeys.noaa.gov/
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Coral-List mailing list
> > Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> > http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
>
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