What we’re doing to help the Reef – Reef Keepers monitoring the 2020 Bleaching Event

In 2019, Lady Musgrave Experience launched their Marine Biologist for a Day and Reef Keeper citizen science programmes. Across the scope of these activities, we have managed to increase our knowledge about our local sites and the threats they may face, which in turn helps us to better manage them to keep our reef vibrant, healthy and thriving.

 The Reef keepers are a local community group dedicated to monitoring the local reef and sharing positive reef health messages with the local community.  In their first six months of activities the Reef Keepers conducted CoralWatch and Eye on the Reef surveys, entering information into databases which are used to better understand and manage reef health and their associated threats.

Our Marine Biologist for a Day program also contributed  important information to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority on threats such as Crown of thorns starfish,  which allowed management and control activities to be undertaking before the threats became a serious one.  Thanks to our citizen science programs and our strong partnership with management authorities Lady Musgrave Experience with the help of its guests  is able to keep a close eye I read health and ensure that’s the reef is well cared for and given the best chance to build resilience and respond to stress.

By visiting Lady Musgrave reef on multiple occasions, the Reef Keeper group were able to witness and monitor  the recent 2020  bleaching event,  submitting crucial information to management authorities.

Around the world, media headlines have stated that the Great Barrier Reef is dead, however this is far from true. Coral Bleaching is a complex process. If a coral bleaches, it does not necessarily mean that it will die.   While the most recent bleaching event was presented in the media as the third mass bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef, the bleaching witnessed at Lady Musgrave in 2020 was the very first on record.  Being the first bleaching event ever seen at this lady Musgrave, corals have a much better chance of recovery. The good news is that the vast majority of corals have since recovered and the Reef is still thriving, just as before.

Through our citizen science programs, we have completed 280 surveys since October 2019, and collected 3311 data points. Some of the most common critters we see are:

We have recorded 7 COTS since October 2019

• Butterflyfishes
• Green turtles
• Parrotfish
• Coral trout
• Giant clams
• Sea cucumbers
• Anemonefishes
• Reef sharks
• Rays