MUE October 2009 Meeting Report

Hello MUE's




We had a great meeting last night with 13 MUE members attending. We missed those of you that couldn't attend. We welcomed our newest members, Guy Wagner, Kevin Corby, Frank Blanco and Berny Blanco. Rick Thomas was also able to come down and join us for the first time. Thank you all very much for coming.



Last night, Todd Kincaid, GUE & WKPP Science Director gave us an overview of GUE's Project Baseline via telephone. While it did take a little long, we got a great sense of what GUE's global conservation initiative entails. The exciting news is that MUE is going to be in the forefront of it all. Only one other GUE-based group, the BAUE (Bay Area Underwater Explorers in San Francisco , CA.) is working with the Project in the US .



After our call with Todd, we stayed and kicked around some ideas of potential sites where we'd be working in the future. We mentioned live reefs, artificial reefs (i.e., wrecks) and even Commercial Pier. All great stuff.



There are many "things" that we can and will be doing as research/science divers. Examples include taking photos and photo mosaics, videos, measurements, and performing fish-counts. As Rick mentioned last night, we need to be EXCELLENT in all we do and for that, we'll need to train. We only have one shot at making a first impression in the diving science community and with GUE. We can't just jump in the water tomorrow and start. We need to establish a training program and "train" ourselves as science/research divers. In this regard, we will start our training in the form of fish identification. Fish ID and counts are an important tool in the determination of the overall health of a reef. While it may sound mundane, it is a very measurable and used criterion in the science diving community. Besides, I personally think it would be awesome to actually know the names of the fish we see in our everyday dives.



Matt, Rick and I will be meeting and having calls over the next few weeks to hammer out a plan that for the future of MUE's science and research diving initiative. We'll also be speaking with a local scientist/diver that has already expressed interest in helping us in this regard and joining the team. We'll present the plan during our next meeting.



In the meantime, we ask you to do two things:



First: Look at the emails that Matt sent yesterday and start learning the names of the top 20 fish. The email titled “MUE_Level_1_ Fish.pdf” contains a three page .pdf file containing those fish. Just print that out (in color, duh) and write the name of the fish on the back and voila, you have flash cards (well, flash paper). You can always glue them onto cards. Matt will send out an “answer key” soon for the .pdf file. Let us know if you have any problems downloading, etc. We’ll review those fish during our next meeting and Matt & Rick will give us the next set.



Second: Please register with R.E.E.F.. It's free and a great tool to us get started in our Fish ID training. http://www.reef. org/resources/ fieldstations/ info



We’re on our way to help conserve our beautiful underwater habitat and use our amazing GUE training for a great purpose. And, of course, we’ll have a blast doing it!



Thanks again.



Sergio