Wild Tobago

Dr Anjani Ganase, marine scientist, offers a pictorial sampling of coral reef species from the Ind-Pacific coral region. These, she says, are not found in the Caribbean or Atlantic, but it is useful to note where our appreciation for coral reefs might have come from Indo-Pacific coral reefs - which occur in the Indian and Pacific Oceans - are known to be composed of unique communities of coral life. These are very different from those of the Atlantic and Caribbean regions. At the heart of the Indo-Pacific lies the Coral Triangle, the bioregion with the highest biodiversity of corals, reef fish and other marine invertebrates. Compared to the whole Caribbean region that has less than a hundred species of coral, reefs in the Coral Triangle support over 500 species of coral; and as many species of other marine life. There are many unique marine creatures that are not found on Caribbean coral reefs, and here are some example of these creatures. Of the creatures featured here, these...

In the International Year of the Reef in Trinidad and Tobago, Dr Diva Amon brings us the corals of the deep. Dr Amon is a deep-sea biologist who has explored the deep ocean in Antarctica, the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Caribbean. Her research focuses on what lives in our world’s deep ocean and how we are impacting life down there. You can find out more @divaamon on Twitter and her website https://divaamon.com/ Did you know that most species of coral are actually found in waters so deep that sunlight cannot reach them? Yes, that’s right, contrary to what most of us have been taught, the majority of corals do not live in tropical waters surrounded by colourful fish and bathed in sunlight. In fact, most are found in waters deeper than 50 metres around the world, even in our frigid polar seas. Deepwater corals include many of the same groups seen on shallow reefs, such as stony branching corals, cup corals, octocorals and black corals. There are already over 3000 species know...

Consider what makes healthy reefs in this, the 3rd International Year of the Reef (IYOR). Dr. Farahnaz Solomon, Marine Biologist and IYORTT team member, provides some insight into the characteristics of one of the more colourful and important coral reef inhabitants – parrotfishes. She highlights the vital role they play and why their protection is necessary to ensure the persistence of reefs in Tobago and the Caribbean. As a lover of bright vivid colors, my admiration was won instantly by the delightfully garish parrotfishes, inhabitants of coral reefs. These thick scaled reef inhabitants possess a very fickle sense of fashion – not only does every species have a different color scheme, but they also change “outfits” as they move from babies, to juveniles, to adults. As my interest in reef fish deepened, I quickly learnt that there were more fascinating, albeit unusual, characteristics of these beauties than colour. Their diet, sleeping behaviour, and sexual orientation are all f...

On June 8, celebrate World Oceans Day with your own thanksgiving and tribute to the waters that surround Tobago: a sea bath, a beach lime, a coastal clean up, an exploration along a nearby shore. For the rest of the year, adopt some of these practices to protect and conserve the ocean from where you live and work. (First published in Newsday Tobago, June 7, 2018) The artist who created the clay plaque called “Famous Fish meets the King of Undersea World,” Bunty O’Connor, says that our familiarity and dependence on plastic – especially single use plastic – happened in the recent three decades. This is the story of her artwork, “That famous fish was a mylar balloon, the first I had seen. It floated up on Madamas beach (on Trinidad’s north coast) maybe 32 years ago. We were camping with the children. And hard to imagine, no plastic on the beach back then. I can also remember my first plastic red soap package floating in the sea in Charlotteville, maybe the same time or a little e...

This week, Dr Amy Deacon, Lecturer in the Department of Life Sciences at The University of the West Indies, St Augustine and Secretary of the Trinidad and Tobago Field Naturalists’ Club continues her series on the biodiversity of the Main Ridge Reserve (MRR). Today, she teams up with UWI Entomologist Raj Mahabir to introduce us to the beetles of the MRR. When you think about the biodiversity of the main Ridge Forest Reserve, which creature springs to mind? The sabrewing hummingbird? The blue-backed manakin? The agouti? It is probably safe to bet that you are not imagining a dung beetle. Today, we are here to convince you that these smaller inhabitants of the MRR are just as important and interesting as the more familiar animals associated with Tobago’s forests. Almost a third of all insects are beetles – more than 300,000 species worldwide. They are distinguished by their hard outer wings, which protect the delicate flight wings underneath. At least 700 species are found in Tob...

Do you miss the corals that are no longer on Buccoo Reef? No, but you would miss mangoes in season if there were no pollinators. In this International Year of the Reef, more corals are likely to disappear as the earth warms. Dr Anjani Ganase, marine ecologist, reminds us of other creatures endangered or already lost; and asks us to pay attention to the accelerating decline in biological diversity because of the ways that humans have changed the environment.  May 18 was World Endangered Species Day; and May 22 International Day for Biological Diversity. The reality is, as we lose more endangered species, the result is the decline of biodiversity. It is estimated that since 1970 (International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN), global vertebrate populations have declined by at least 30 %. Scientists warn that continued decline will result in extinctions, even potentially the sixth mass global extinction event. Humans have significantly accelerated the extinction rates of ...

Sint Maarten recently designated its entire exclusive economic zone a marine protected area and shark sanctuary. Dr Anjani Ganase meets Tadzio Bervoets, director of the Sint Maarten Nature Foundation and advocate for sharks in the Caribbean. My first meeting with Tadzio Bervoets was under unusual circumstances. Shortly before we were to meet, I got this request: “ Do you have access to a small airtight container and some rubbing alcohol? ” Before I could ask why, Facebook exploded. Tadzio, director of the Sint Maarten Nature Foundation, was attending a conference at a hotel in Trinidad to present on marine ecosystem resilience. But he found out that he was being served bake and shark. Passionate about shark conservation and research, he had to speak out, he had to do something. It turned out I was aiding and abetting the smuggling of the tiniest piece of cooked shark meat out of Trinidad for genetics testing to determine the species of shark being served.  Tadzio grew up o...