REEF Survey

REEF's mission is to conserve marine ecosystems by educating divers and letting them do the surveys. This helps REEF to keep good records of the fish abundance and variety in certain areas around the world.
For outdoor science, we went to a fishpond near our school to do an abundance and variety of fish survey there. The area that we swam in was inside the actual fishpond. We used masks and we swam all around in the water and looked for fish. The plan was to record the fish that we saw and then send that form into REEF.
When we got there and in the very cold water, the water was all murky and disgusting. We did not see any fish, partly because the visibility or turbidity was very low. The mud on the fishpond floor was sticky and gross. I think that the reason for all of these bad results was that there had been a big storm a few months ago that brought a lot of sediment into the fishpond and stirred up the water in it. Some say that before the storm that there was a lot of fish that lived in the fishpond. I don't think that it would be a nice place to live anymore. The fact that we saw no fish shows to REEF that this area has had a decrease in the fish population and needs help in restoring it.
For more information about REEF, please visit http://www.reef.org/