What is being done to protect Nassau grouper?

A social and ecological cornerstone of Caribbean coral reefs, the Nassau grouper is a Caribbean icon. Normally solitary and territorial, during the winter full moons grouper travel, sometimes over great distances, and “group” together to spawn at the same sites every year. The predictable nature of these spawning aggregations renders them vulnerable to overfishing, and now one-third to one-half of the originally known spawning sites in the Caribbean are inactive.

In 2002, the Reef Environmental Educational Foundation (REEF) launched "The Grouper Moon Project" - a collaborative effort with the Cayman Islands Department of Environment to study the last remaining active Nassau grouper spawning aggregation in the Cayman Islands.

By popular request, digital images of the GeoMap are available. These images have been prepared from the original digital art files, so no quality has been lost by scanning.Pacific NW GeoMap CD

*The CD contains 32 images that include full images of both sides of the GeoMap; along with an assortment of enlarged GeoMap details at various magnifications, to use depending on the focus of your presentation.

Many images have both labeled and unlabeled versions, so you may annotate as desired. One teacher who stopped by at the NSTA exhibit in Seattle said he prepared a PowerPoint assessment for his kids, where he would arrange each slide with a blank slide to follow, where each student then had to write two sentences to explain what was happening.

Your copy signed by the author!

From the Publisher:
Written in the same vein as well-known author John McPhee’s books, Big Black Boring Rock is a collection of highly readable and witty essays that focus on the geology of the Pacific Northwest. Author Steve Reidel is a geologist with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington, and an expert on Columbia River Basalt, the primary rock of the Columbia Basin – the semi-arid region of Washington State where most of the essays are set. The book collects a series of captivating essays Reidel has been writing for more than a decade for the Tri-City Herald, the daily newspaper of the Tri-Cities (Richland, Pasco, and Kennewick), Washington. Written in plain language, Reidel makes geology, an often difficult field to understand, accessible for all readers.