[Shannon Ricles] Right, well, hi everyone.
We really want to thank you today for joining us
for our webinar on Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary.
I'm Shannon Ricles, I'm the Education
and Outreach Coordinator
for Monitor and Mallows Bay
National Marine Sanctuary,
and I'm gonna be your host today.
And joining me today is also Mark Losavio,
the Media and Outreach Coordinator
for Monitor and Mallows Bay
National Marine Sanctuary.
This webinar is brought to you by
NOAA's Monitor National Marine Sanctuary
in collaboration with the North Carolina
Office of State Archeology.
Now, partnering since 1975,
NOAA and the state of North Carolina
work to research, honor and protect
the hallmarks of North Carolina's
underwater cultural heritage - shipwrecks.
These shipwrecks hold information about the ever-changing
technologies and cultural and physical landscapes.
They serve as a uniquely accessible
underwater museum and a memorial
to generations of mariners who lived, died, worked,
and fought off our shores.
This is one of the many webinars
we will be hosting in the coming month for
the Submerged North Carolina webinar series,
in collaboration with the
North Carolina Office of State Archeology.
Now, Monitor is just one of 15
national marine sanctuaries
and two marine national monuments
in the National Marine Sanctuary System.
The system encompasses more than
620,000 square miles of marine
and Great Lakes waters from Washington State
to the Florida Keys,
and from Lake Huron to American Samoa.
Now during the presentation
all attendees will be in listen-only mode.
You are welcome to type questions for the presenters
into the question box at the bottom
of your control panel,
on the right-hand side of your screen.
This is the same area you can let us know
about any technical issues that you
might be having and that we can help you with.
We'll be monitoring the incoming questions
and technical issues and we'll respond
just as quickly as we can.
We are recording this session and we will share
a recording with the registered participants
via the webinar archive page,
and a URL for this webpage will be provided
at the end of the presentation.
So today we welcome Ben Prueitt,
the Outreach and Social Media Coordinator for Gray's Reef.
And we really want to thank you today, Ben, for joining us.
And I'm gonna turn it over to you.
I'll change presenters
and you should now have the screen.
[Ben Prueitt] Not that one, all right.
I thought I'd be good at this, but.
Let's see, PowerPoint show.
Is this it?
-: There you go. -: There it is.
All right, second verse same as the first.
Well, Shannon and Mark, thank you so much
for hosting me and Gray's Reef
National Marine Sanctuary here at the
Submerged North Carolina webinar series.
I've got a number of slides for you today,
I'm super excited.
As Shannon mentioned, my name is Ben Prueitt.
I'm the Outreach and Social Media Coordinator,
as well as the Volunteer Coordinator
at Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary.
As Shannon also mentioned,
Gray's Reef is just down the coast
of Monitor National Marine Sanctuary.
So as the red arrow showed earlier, just down the coast,
just a few hundred miles south
from Monitor is Gray's Reef.
Our offices are located in Savannah, Georgia.
And if you ever wanted to take a trip to Savannah,
I would recommend that the best time would be
on October 15th and the following week,
because we are opening our new
Gray's Reef Ocean Discovery Center in downtown.
Our ribbon cutting and dedication
for this center is Saturday, October 15th
from 2:00 to 3:00 PM and then the following week
we're gonna have a number of
opportunities to explore the sanctuary
and to...
learn about some free programs,
free giveaways, public programs, family activities.
Having some issues with my slides.
Just other activities
and virtual dives and more.
So we have three themes as part of the visitor center,
explore, connect, and discover.
And this is (inaudible)
what is going to lead us through our presentation
and our webinar today.
When it comes to "explore",
we're gonna look and see what is actually
at the sanctuary and what factors
make the sanctuary what it is
and the reef what it is.
When it comes to "connect",
we're gonna talk about how people
connect with the sanctuary.
And "discover" is talking about what we know about
the sanctuary in terms of scientific research.
And not only the sanctuary,
but our offshore waters,
our South Atlantic Bight
and continuing on into larger scales.
Before I get started, I did wanna
recognize the work of the late Greg McFall.
A number of the pictures that you'll see today
were taken through Greg's lens
and through Greg's eye.
Greg was an accomplished diver
and underwater photographer.
Greg was the research coordinator and superintendent
at Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary
in the late 2000s, before becoming the director
of the NOAA Dive Center.
For me, as a fellow underwater photographer,
I don't think without Greg's work and effort
at Gray's Reef that people would see
the beauty that is truly down there,
and some of the beauty that we'll see today
through these pictures.
So let's get started.
Let's start off by exploring what's at the sanctuary.
So first, before we get into actually getting underwater
and virtually getting our feet wet, if you will,
I wanted to orient us to where we are on the coast.
So here we have the Southeast United States,
and then in these two red dots are the locations
of Monitor National Marine Sanctuary
off the coast of North Carolina,
and then the red square,
which is where Gray's Reef is approximately located.
And the big difference that I see in this map
is not only how far south Gray's Reef is from Monitor,
but also how far west Gray's Reef is from Monitor.
We're part of the South Atlantic Bight,
which is a very large curve from
Cape Hatteras, North Carolina,
down to Cape Canaveral.
And the dynamics and oceanography
of the waters in this bight
have a large influence on the life
that lives at Gray's Reef
and why it's there in the first place.
Gray's Reef is a dynamic and ever-changing environment,
one day we can have clear waters and the next day
it can be turbid, cloudy waters.
And they all depend on mainly these
three factors of rivers, currents, and tides.
Coastal Georgia, which has about 100 miles
of coastline, has five coastal rivers.
Starting from the north, we have the Savannah River,
moving south, the Ogeechee River,
closest to the sanctuary is the mighty Altamaha,
which flows much of the state of Georgia,
the Satilla River,
and the St. Mary's River.
These rivers provide nutrient-rich waters
for the coastal environments
and the marshes off of our coasts,
which, the marshes act sometimes as nurseries
for many of the fish and other invertebrates
and life that live out at Gray's Reef.
The next factor is ocean currents
and mainly the Gulf Stream Current,
which comes approximately 80 miles east
of where the sanctuary is.
So it's a warm-water current coming up
from the Caribbean along the East Coast
of the United States and into the North Atlantic.
We're not directly over the-
Or under, I guess, the Gulf Stream,
but we are about 80 miles west of it,
and we do get some tropical species that come
and kind of maybe make a pit stop
off at Gray's Reef as part of this maybe migration
or potentially getting lost.
And lastly, I wanted to talk about tides.
Because Gray's Reef is so far west
in that South Atlantic Bight,
we have a very large tidal range.
Our tidal range is between seven and eight feet,
which means that there's a lot of moving,
a lot of water moving on a regular basis
in and out of the marshes,
in and out of the rivers and across Gray's Reef.
And that contributes to that dynamic,
ever-changing environment that we see there.
In terms of what's at the bottom,
we are what's known as a live-bottom reef,
or a hard-bottom reef,
which is different than,
and not like the coral reefs that you
may be familiar with in the Florida Keys,
the Great Barrier Reef.
Our reef is not based off of corals,
off of hard corals and built by corals,
it's made out of sandstone that was deposited
millions of years ago
and over time the sea level has risen and fallen
to create the environment that we have today.
This illustration at the top
shows a number of slopes, troughs,
valleys and ledges that
show the variety of
just where animals can live
and survive and thrive at Gray's Reef.
On the bottom we see a couple examples of these,
Gray's Reef both has live-bottom ledges
like you see on the left,
but it also has a number of patchy, sandy areas,
which makes up a majority of the sanctuary,
but not really too much to write about
because it is just sand.
These environments, these live-bottom habitats,
are very similar to those seen off of North Carolina
in maybe a similar depth,
the ones off of North Carolina are
a little bit deeper,
but they look very similar,
they have a similar habitat,
similar life that's living there.
And when I first learned to scuba dive
off the coast of Tampa Bay and St. Petersburg,
I learned on live-bottom reefs.
So when I started diving at Gray's Reef
just a few months ago, I got down there
and was like, "Huh, these look pretty familiar,"
because they are.
Live-bottom reefs are found throughout
the Atlantic coast as well as places
in the Gulf of Mexico.
Gray's Reef is an ocean oasis
with a diversity of marine life.
And I love this picture because sometimes
you might think that it's staged,
with Greg putting this sea star on top
of that sponge there and putting
that fish exactly there,
but the amazing thing that I find in this picture
is that everything besides the sand
and the water is alive and living.
It's part of life and it's part of
the ecosystem at Gray's Reef.
So in terms of maps or charts,
we have this nautical chart here
and that doesn't really tell us too much.
It tells us what the depth is and where
the research area is,
that's that red rectangle at the southern third,
and we'll get into that later in the presentation.
But what it doesn't tell us is
what's actually down there.
Are we looking at sand?
Are we looking at more hard-bottom?
So through a number of multi-beam
acoustic mapping efforts
researchers have come up with this benthic cover map.
We have oranges and tans as our sands,
two different types of sands in this one in particular,
and then those blue patches are live bottom habitats.
So as you can see,
the sand covers a majority of the sanctuary
and it shows just, you know, kind of,
sand is just always moving at Gray's Reef
from tides and currents that I described earlier.
And in my eyes, the sand kind of acts like a wildfire
or a prescribed burn for parts of the sanctuary
and other live-bottoms
because it covers old-
Or, excuse me, it...,
yes, covers old growth but also exposes new
live-bottom and hard rocky areas,
which things can attach to
and start creating a new environment.
And this picture in particular is of a guitarfish,
which is a rare find for some of these divers.
In terms of live-bottom,
there are two types of live-bottom that we describe.
One is a low-relief or sparsely colonized live-bottom.
This is the most common type
of live-bottom at the sanctuary,
and it's a place where invertebrate animals
are able to attach to the rocky bottom.
And what divers are always looking for
is the magnificent ledges, outcroppings,
those sorts of things,
which are these darker blue squiggles.
These magnificent ledges sometimes rise
up to six feet above the sea floor
and produce ample habitat for many of
the species that live, or visit the sanctuary.
So Mark, if you will, we have a sound clip,
go ahead and get that prepared.
But before we get into the sites of Gray's Reef,
I wanted to use our ears and play some sounds
of what the reef sounds like on a typical day.
And once this clip starts, you'll hear
some high pitch crackling as well as
some low pitched humming.
(crackling and humming)
(sound stops)
Okay, let me see if I can get this back, there we go.
All right, thank you Mark.
So as you heard, there were some high pitched cracklings
and low pitched hummings,
and these are all coming from animals.
These animals make a chorus of life heard at the reef.
Animals mainly communicate in order to
communicate about food, reproduction,
predators or shelters.
Those four things are probably the main thing
that they are concerned about in the life
of a fish or the life of a marine animal.
That high pitch snapping that you heard is
actually from the, rightfully named, snapping shrimp.
My colleague Ally likens these to the castanets
or maracas in a band,
'cause they're constantly just thousands of these
shrimp just kind clacking something on there,
I'm not exactly sure which part of their body,
but making that high pitched crackling.
If we continue the musical analogy,
on a lower register you have that
grunting and that comes from an oyster toadfish.
Oyster toadfish, again, are making these noises
in order to alert about predators.
Say, "Hey, there's food over here,"
find shelter or to reproduce.
This main picture is an odd one
because we don't normally see the oyster toadfish
out on the sand like this,
they're normally tucked away,
like what you see here,
and it's really just their heads
and they're lips pointing out
and some of their camouflage really
makes for a difficult time to see them,
but when you see them
it's quite funny to find them.
So, for the next few slides I wanted to
just go into some of the common species
that we see at Gray's Reef.
And the first one I wanted to talk about fish,
and I don't think any trip to Gray's Reef is complete
without seeing these fish here.
These are Atlantic spadefish,
and us divers call them the
welcoming party of Gray's Reef.
They are found on almost every dive
and sometimes swirl around you
in just a number of, you know,
looking to see what you're doing down there.
So, on behalf of the spadefish
and staff here at Gray's Reef,
welcome to Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary.
Some of the resident fishes that we have around the
sanctuary include larger fish like scamp grouper
in the upper left.
On the upper right are black sea bass,
which are one of the more common fish
that we see and one of the
more common predators that we see,
they're a predatory fish eating smaller fish.
In the bottom left we have Tomtate,
these Tomtate often come in schools
and school similar to the Atlantic spadefish.
And then of course, since we're in the ocean,
we have sharks.
Our most common shark that we see are nurse sharks,
like what you see in the bottom right.
We also have a number of visitors to
Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary.
One of our-
Just a couple stories here.
These visitor fish, I kind of think
of Savannah being similar to Gray's Reef
in that on I-95, people might make a pit stop
in Savannah on their way south or north,
and in the Atlantic Ocean,
fish or other migrating animals
might make a pit stop at Gray's Reef
on their journey north or migrations south.
So I see a similarity in the two,
both the city and where people live,
and then where all of these marine animals live.
I wanted to share an interesting story about
this tiger shark,
or these tiger sharks on the bottom right.
After a decade of tracking animals along the East Coast,
a single tagged tiger shark,
like what you see in the bottom right,
was identified at Gray's Reef
for three consecutive years,
and in each of those years
it was within a week of the year prior,
almost as if it had a travel agent
or was looking at a calendar of when
it was traveling through the sanctuary
on an annual migration.
So it's trends like these that our researchers
are looking to understand using novel technologies.
And now we're gonna get into my favorite part,
which are the invertebrates,
or animals without backbones.
There are over 900 species of invertebrates
described at Gray's Reef.
And just for a quick moment,
I wanted to go over some of them here
that you might see or might be wondering
what those colors are.
So the most obvious one is our sea star down here,
but when we look at the ledge
we start seeing things like corals, some hard corals,
there's some tunicates here,
a sea urchin,
some soft corals up here on the top,
these are these finger-like, frilly
octocorals, or soft corals,
more tunicates, or sea squirts as they're commonly called.
And then one thing that that I often miss,
but I wanted to to point out here
is there's a little crab here.
You might see it, that little red thing
with the two arms,
that's a little decorator crab
that sometimes is just trying to hang out
and just live its life at the reef.
So these next few slides are just some macro images
of some of the life living at Gray's Reef.
Our first one are the tentacles of a sea anemone.
Next is a Christmas tree worm.
And these branches, if you will,
of this worm are filter feeding.
So they're picking up particulates from the water
that's drifting and flowing by.
And the cool thing that I find about these
is if you get too close to them,
they're really only about an inch tall,
but if you get too close to them on the reef,
they'll quickly retract into their tubes
and are, you know, kind of skittish in that sense.
Next we have an arrow crab,
which are quite commonly seen on the reef,
these are, again, very small
and they use their long front claws
to pick and keep the reef clean.
If I didn't have the caption in the bottom right,
I would ask each of you to think of what this might be,
but it is a Atlantic sea nettle, or a type of jelly.
And you can start to see some of the tentacles
going off into the bottom right to complete its body.
But just some of the textures, colors,
and shapes of nature just amaze me sometimes,
and that are seen at the reef.
Next are some soft corals,
scientifically known as octocorals.
These are very common at the reef,
are similar to the hard corals that you might
be familiar with in the Florida Keys,
but they're soft and they have more tentacles.
One of the most common invertebrate are the sponges here.
So we have boulder-type sponges,
base-type sponges, and branching-type sponges.
These are filter feeding animals
and again, through each of these pictures,
these are animals, they're not rocks,
they're not algae or plants,
they are living animals,
which I just find amazing the variety
of life in invertebrates.
And here is, again, a very common species
found or a common group of animals found
called tunicates, also known as sea squirts.
So there are two types in this,
there's the bright orange colonial tunicates
that are very small and then they have
a jet that goes in and a jet that goes out,
that's why they're called sea squirts.
And then the larger ones, which are the same group,
but just a different species.
And some of the more rare finds are
in the upper left, the aptly named,
and appropriately named, Regal sea goddess
with its beautiful purples and yellows.
This is a type of nudibranch,
or maybe a sea slug, if you will.
These are just magnificent to see,
they're about half the size of your pinky
and once you find them
they're just incredible to see
and just the vibrant colors.
My personal favorite sea animal is the sea cucumber.
No particular reason, just I find them very funny to-
It's just this kind of slug
that moves along the bottom,
but it's related to a sea star.
Sea star and sea urchin here on the bottom left.
And then just a pallet of tunicates seen at our reef.
Some of the larger visitors that we have
coming down into the South Atlantic
is the North Atlantic right whale.
Gray's Reef is the only known-
Gray's Reef is within the only known winter
calving ground of the North Atlantic right whale.
And between mid-November and mid-April
these whales migrate to the warm waters
off the coast of Georgia, Florida,
South Carolina and North Carolina.
During these times we encourage all boaters
to be on the lookout and slow down
for these during this season
and lookout for these critically endangered animals.
More information about the North Atlantic right whale
can be found at fisheries.noaa.gov.
And one of the common but special sights
that we typically see at Gray's Reef
are Loggerhead sea turtles.
At Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary
we have five species of turtles,
most common is this Loggerhead here.
The ledges of Gray's Reef,
we have noticed that some of the turtles
either back themselves in or go face first
to try to get the barnacles off of their shell
using the undersides of the ledge,
which is an interesting interaction.
We haven't studied it scientifically
to better understand it,
but we do see a lot of turtles,
which is probably what you see this turtle coming out,
it may have just been scratching its back.
So that completes our explore section
and I wanted to move into the connect section now.
Connecting with people, with their resource,
and their environment out at Gray's Reef.
So it's a common misconception at Gray's Reef
that it is off limits,
and this can't be further than the truth.
We encourage recreational fishing and diving
in our ocean park and have a number of resources
to make sure you are able to fish
and dive responsibly and sustainably.
In terms of fishing, you may fish
with a rod and reel and keep what you catch,
as long as it meets seasonal and size limits.
To further encourage responsible recreation
in the sanctuary,
Gray's Reef has partnered with the Nature Conservancy,
National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, Dewberry,
and a few local partners in creating
a Best Fishing Practices Guide,
which is flipping through some of the pages here.
It's hosted on the Gray's Reef website
and it's a guide that covers most information
that anglers should know before
fishing in the sanctuary.
Things including regulation,
best practices on how to handle
or release fish experiencing barotrauma,
which is a common ailment when bringing a fish up
from the depth of Gray's Reef.
So I encourage you, if you're just a avid fisher
or visiting Gray's Reef,
to check out graysreef.noaa.gov/fishing-
Or, excuse me, /visit/fishing,
for this Best Fishing Practices Guide.
Diving also happens here.
Due to the depth of 65 feet,
underwater currents, varying levels of visibility,
Gray's Reef is considered an advanced dive,
but if you're up to the challenge,
a number of local dive charters have regular trips
to the sanctuary for you to see it for yourself.
We are also releasing a best fishing prac-
Excuse me.
Best Diving Practices Guide,
similar to that of the Best Fishing Practices Guide,
which compiles resources to make the most
of your trip to the sanctuary and dive responsibly.
If you can't make it out to the sanctuary
or if you just don't wanna get your feet wet,
Gray's Reef hosts a number of online and on land
opportunities to connect with your sanctuary.
Virtual dives with 360 headsets
and touchscreen interactive galleries
are two ways that people can visit
the sanctuary from on land.
Also, if you're more of the social media type person,
you can always tag Gray's Reef
on social media at #GraysReef.
We have an annual celebration called
the "Get into your Sanctuary" celebration,
which is an encouragement of all Americans
to use their sanctuary and their
marine resources responsibly
and enjoy what our government has
decided to protect over 50 years ago,
coming up on 50 years ago.
Part of the "Get into your Sanctuary" celebration
is our photo contest, which you can submit
in the summer of each year.
The Sanctuary Advisory Council is a community-based
advisory group of representatives
from various user groups, government agencies,
and the public at large.
These user groups include scientific research,
recreational fishing, scuba diving, conservation,
K through 12 and university education.
Non-voting government seats include NOAA Fisheries,
the Georgia Department of Natural Resources,
the United States Coast Guard,
and NOAA Law Enforcement.
So the Advisory Council is the best way
for the public and citizens to address
issues and protections within
Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary.
Regular council meetings are open to the public
and each representative welcomes comments
to discuss agenda items at the meetings.
And lastly, since I am the Volunteer Coordinator,
my favorite way for people to engage and connect
with the sanctuary is by volunteering.
So with the Gray's Reef Ocean Discovery Center
opening fairly soon,
we have opportunities for greeters and docents
to interact with the public.
We also have more on-water opportunities,
being a vessel monitor or even Team Ocean Diving.
So if you are interested in volunteering
and supporting your sanctuary, please contact me,
I have my contact later in the presentation.
And at this point I wanted to give people
a reminder that if you would like to
submit questions that you can do so in the chat,
or questions feature on the side panel.
And this moves into our final section
which is about discovering.
Discovering more about the reef
in terms of science and marine research.
And Gray's Reef has a long history
of scientific research.
If it weren't for this gentleman here,
Milton "Sam" Gray, who was the person
to discover Gray's Reef in modern times,
we probably would still be looking to see what
this extensive live-bottom is like.
So in the mid-1950s, Milton "Sam" Gray
retired from his job as a biological collector
in New England, moved down to South Carolina
and began fishing, or doing bottom trawls
off the coast of Georgia because it had never
been explored until the 1950s.
So he found this area off of Sapelo Island
and ended up naming it the Sapelo Live-Bottom.
And over the years that find has encouraged
other people such as Vernon "Jim" Henry,
that you see in the upper left,
as well as a number of other divers
to continue to map and study the sanctuary.
And it wasn't until the mid-1970s
that a gentleman named Jesse Hunt
suggested, "Hey, Sam Gray meant so much to
this area and the Sapelo Live-Bottom,
let's rename it after him."
So the conservation and preservation effort
started at that point and a woman
by the name of Jane Yarn,
who was a big proponent of preservation
along the Georgia coast,
was the one to introduce
the importance of protection to President Jimmy Carter.
And it wasn't until 1981 that the sanctuary
was designated as a national marine sanctuary
under President Jimmy Carter.
So with this legacy of research,
that research continues today,
and Gray's Reef is seen as a catalyst
for research and science legacy.
It is a testing bed for new technologies.
In the upper left we have Slocum Gliders,
un-crewed, ocean gliders that move through
the sanctuary, move through the South Atlantic.
On the upper right we have chemistry monitoring
of ocean chemistry to track
changes due to climate change.
And we have, in the bottom left, a Gray's Reef Rover,
which is an un-crewed, autonomous vehicle
that will move along the bottom to
look at fish and see changes while
a diver can recover from one of-
(inaudible)
Or their most recent dives.
One of the main parts of
the catalyst for research that Gray's Reef is,
is having a research area in the Southern Third.
The research area was designated in 2011,
is approximately eight square miles
and is a place where recreational fishing
and diving is prohibited.
So you must have a permit in order to
fish or dive in that area.
And this gives an opportunity for scientists
to study the impacts of human activities
on the sanctuary's marine resource.
So Mark, next we have a video
about research at the sanctuary.
Narrator: Welcome to Gray's Reef
National Marine Sanctuary.
Spectacular, isn't it?
So what's so special about this patch of water?
Just looks like water, pretty much like
every other patch of water.
Or does it?
Join us as we journey below the surface.
What we discover is an extraordinary oasis of life.
We find hundreds of species of fish,
threatened and endangered species,
an abundance of sponges and corals
all drawn to this unique and essential
hard-bottom reef ecosystem.
(epic music)
Protecting this important underwater community
requires careful study.
At Gray's Reef, researchers from many organizations
come together to monitor the reef's health.
A key question they're trying to answer is,
what observed changes are due to natural variations
versus human activities?
Aboard the NOAA ship Nancy Foster,
a team of 14 scientists conducts
round the clock research to monitor
marine life in Gray's Reef.
This work tells the story of how healthy
the sanctuary is and what may be changing.
(exciting music)
-: This is one of the few places in the world
where I can jump in the water
and study the interactions of individual animals
playing out over the course of the day and night
in their environment
and see predation in action,
individual animals feeding on others,
and I work on higher trophic level predators.
Today we did a diving survey
for the distribution of prey and predators
and their behaviors along the reef,
and recovered a time lapse camera.
The time lapse camera allows us to look at
the abundance and behavior of animals over 24 hours.
(exciting music)
-: Using fisheries acoustic we are able
to characterize the distribution of predators
and prey over different habitats
and throughout the 24 hours.
First we pick a site to survey
and then we go up and down with the ship
with the echos under going and trying to
characterize the area all over the site.
-: We are privileged to serve as stewards
of Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary.
To fulfill this responsibility we need information,
information about the health of the creatures
and the habitats within this precious place.
We do this to ensure that Gray's Reef remains
a healthy and thriving marine community
for us, for the ocean,
and because it's the right thing to do.
Narrator: As we finish our dive to Gray's Reef,
we return to the surface.
Once again, we see only water.
(epic music)
Or do we?
-: Our work is important because it reveals
the invisible fabric of nature.
We're beginning to understand the interactions
within and between species,
individual animals operating in the habitat
and the community here in
Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary.
It's important for moving forward
to involve all the principles of
ecosystem-based management,
both for managing the sanctuary in particular
and the larger region as a whole,
and it allows us to think about what
sustainability means for the long-term
in terms of conserving our natural heritage.
(epic music)
Narrator: Now-
[Ben] Okay, thank you Mark.
That video is a few years old at this point
and we have a new superintendent, Stan Rogers,
but it does show a great example of the types
of research that happens at Gray's Reef
and just the continuous studies
that happen within the sanctuary,
and mainly because of this research area,
the promotion of this research area.
Some of the ongoing studies that we do specifically
at the sanctuary, mainly is what's known as
the Sanc Sound, or Sanctuary Sound Project.
You may remember a similar image
from that top image from before
when we listened to the sounds of Gray's Reef.
This is known as what's called a spectrogram,
and as we moved across from left to right across time,
we had our high pitched noises,
those snapping shrimp,
as well as the grunting of a oyster toadfish
on the lower register, on the lower pitch,
lower frequency noises.
So researchers use sound in the sanctuary,
which is collected by hydrophones,
also known as underwater microphones,
to see which fish are living there.
Since all fish make sound,
we can see what the seasonality is,
if there are more snapper coming in,
in a particular region or more grouper
leaving at a particular time.
So hydrophones set up both at Gray's Reef
and along the East Coast can track that migration.
And Gray's Reef is actually one of the louder
sanctuaries in the sanctuary system.
The second half of the Sanctuary Sound Project
is using acoustic receivers and internal tags.
And if you look to my video now,
I have an example of these tags.
This thing is about the size of a baby carrot
and it is implanted inside a fish.
So on a research date that we plan,
we go out, go fishing,
and when we catch black sea bass, in particular,
that are of size, we will bring them aboard
and anesthetize them, or kind of put them to sleep,
perform surgery on them, on the deck of the boat,
implant this tag into their stomach
or into their body cavity,
sew them up and then send them back down
on a descending device.
Those are those yellow concentric circles
that you see coming from it.
Each of these tags sends out a unique ping
or frequency of pings that lets the receivers,
which I have one right here,
the receivers know that a particular fish
is within the range of this underwater.
So these receivers are hung on float balls in line,
that are serviced by divers on a regular basis,
and they pick up pings that come close
enough to one of them.
So with these two technologies,
the receiver and the tag,
we can see which fish are moving across the
sanctuary as well as which fish
are moving up and down the East Coast.
And that tiger shark example that I provided earlier,
that's how we knew that, that shark,
that individual, was coming into the sanctuary
at that point every year.
Some novel technologies that we continue to use
are saildrones and gliders, which are shown here.
I had the lucky opportunity to get fairly close
to this saildrone that you see
on the left-hand picture as part of the
Nancy Foster crew's expedition that we took in 2011.
So you see the Nancy Foster in the background
and a saildrone in the foreground.
In the upper right, which was not pictured
in the 2021 photo, is a glider.
So at the same time, a NOAA white ship,
a data buoy, which I'll get to next,
a saildrone and a glider were all in
the same vicinity collecting the same information,
which is a great way for researchers
and engineers and technologists to cross calibrate
their instruments to make sure that they're measuring
the right thing at the right time.
As I mentioned, the data buoy is the only
landmark at Gray's Reef,
there are no boundary markers or
any lines in the water,
and this is mainly to protect the entanglement
risk of a North Atlantic right whale.
But this data buoy is part of the
National Data Buoy Center Network.
On the right-hand side you'll see
other buoys that are across the
South Atlantic Bight and in the Atlantic Ocean,
and it is a great resource for boaters
planning a trip out to Gray's Reef,
or meteorologists predicting
the potential path of major storms.
Lastly, a continued effort that we have is
multibeam sonar mapping.
Using sound to map the bottom of the ocean
is how we understand what's down there
and what might be changing.
Multibeam allows researchers to map and charts,
like the ones that we saw earlier
with different sand types and live-bottom
types of the sanctuary.
So it's because of multibeam mapping
and sound mapping that we can understand
what's underneath the water
without actually seeing it,
using these mapping sound technologies.
So enough about Gray's Reef,
I wanted to encourage everyone to celebrate
the 50th anniversary of the
Office of National Marine Sanctuaries,
happening in October and also throughout this past year.
There are a number of opportunities to get involved
both locally and nationally.
The United States Postal Service has put out a
stamp book of each of the 16 sites
in the National Marine Sanctuary System.
There are web resources including new videos,
collectible sites and activity badges
from the Park Passport app,
dozens of web stories and signature articles,
educational resources and collections
for either teachers or students,
50th anniversary events, including the one
that we have on the 15th of October in Savannah,
and a Blue Legacy accomplishments report.
And as a more visual person and someone
that works in graphic design some,
a poster series as well.
So by the end of this poster series
we will have one poster, custom designed,
for each of the sanctuary sites.
So on the left hand side we have our colorful
Gray's Reef with some of the things
that I went over today.
You can see that sea turtle at the front,
and then the welcoming party of spadefish.
And then the Monitor on the far right,
showing some of the highlights
of Monitor National Marine Sanctuary.
So with that I wanted to provide
just my contact information.
If there are any further questions,
we can go into questions now,
hosted by Shannon and Mark.
And thank you everybody.
Shannon: All right, thank you Ben, that was awesome.
What a beautiful undersea world Gray's Reef is.
We do have questions,
but if you have not entered your question yet,
we ask you to do so now.
And also if you haven't downloaded Ben's bio
in the chat box, you might want to do that also
as there are some great links in there
that will lead you to some of the websites
that he has shared today.
So, let's go to the first question that we have is,
"How deep is Gray's Reef?"
-: Yes, Gray's Reef varies, depending on the tide,
but our average depth is about 65 feet.
When you're farther west in the sanctuary,
meaning you're closer to land,
it's a little bit shallower maybe in the
upper 60s or lower 50s.
But when you get farther east,
deeper and farther from shore,
it sometimes gets into 70 feet, or the upper 60s.
I feel like I'm talking about temperatures now,
but yeah, average depth is about 65 feet.
Shannon: Okay, Mark, do you have a question?
Mark: Yes, this question is actually really interesting,
especially because it's a growing concern
at the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary,
but, is there an issue with lionfish at Gray's Reef?
-: Yes, well we have seen lionfish at Gray's Reef.
We saw them-
I have never seen a lionfish at Gray's Reef personally,
but I only have a number of dives there.
We do have some staff and some former staff
that have seen lionfish in the mid-2000s,
but on our past two research expeditions
aboard the Nancy Foster,
where we have about 12 divers
diving 40 times in a matter of a week,
you know, it adds up to over hundreds of hours
of diving in a particular year,
we have only seen two lionfish in the past
two years, in 2021 and in 2022.
So that really has us wondering why
are we not seeing them in summer
when other people say that they do see them?
And when the Monitor sees them,
or other sanctuaries see them,
why aren't we seeing them?
So we did have an opportunity to host an intern
to put together a lionfish plan
to have us monitor these more extensively
and we will be implementing that plan
in our future dives.
Shannon: Okay, another question asked
if you could please summarize how old
the reef or parts of it are,
and what is known about the changes
that have happened over time.
-: Yeah, this was one of the slides that I cut out,
but from what I understand
is that sea level has fluctuated over
thousands of years and millions of years.
At one point, sea level was much higher
than it was today and...
the ocean was depositing sand from runoff
and other things at where Gray's Reef was,
the sea level dropped and exposed it
and then rose again to where it is now,
and this is what has caused the sedimentation,
the solidification of the sediments,
which is mainly sandstone.
So it's actually, if you take a part of the reef,
which I don't encourage you to do,
but if you were able to and rub it together,
it is silica sand,
it's not calcium carbonate based,
it's silica based.
I hope that answered your question.
Shannon: All right, Mark, do you have a question?
Mark: Yes, when you were talking about
the volunteer opportunities,
you mentioned Team Ocean Diving.
Can you tell us a little bit more about that?
-: Of course, yes.
So Team Ocean Diving is our volunteer divers
that support the scientific missions of Gray's Reef.
They actually join our researchers,
our sanctuary researchers,
out on the boats to service our hydrophones,
to service our acoustic receivers,
which I showed you earlier.
And it is the best way to get involved
and to actually see the sanctuary for itself.
It is also the most-
There's the most paperwork involved,
So when it comes to paperwork it is a longer process.
So the commitment has to be there
from the individual diver,
but it is a great way to actually see the sanctuary,
to interact with people who are studying it
and to make your own stories
and find your own connection with this
incredible resource off of our coasts.
Shannon: Okay, the sound was amazing,
and one person asked,
"Can a diver actually hear the sounds that you played,
or is that only through a microphone?"
-: That's a great question.
Let's see, I'm trying to think of my experiences diving.
I knew that I did not hear oyster toadfish,
that low grunting,
but that may have been because I was
actually in the water, they could hear my bubbles
and they were kind of scared.
So they were thinking,
"Well, I need to be quiet so that this predator,
a human diver, doesn't attack me,"
which wouldn't happen.
But you do hear some snapping shrimp
at particular levels, there's seemingly always
this background hum when you are diving,
so you can hear it,
but just some frequencies are too low
for us to actually hear.
Shannon: Okay, and Mark, do you have another question?
We probably have time for maybe one or two more.
Mark: Yes, we had a couple people
actually ask about the sharks in the sanctuary.
I know you said that nurse sharks are probably,
like, the most common ones,
but can you tell us about any more shark visitors
to the sanctuary?
-: Yes, we have about 11 different shark species
that we know visit the sanctuary.
And the way that we know them is not
necessarily by seeing them,
but by having tagged individuals
come into our acoustic arrays
and being able to triangulate where they were
and where they originated from,
which are sometimes off the coast of North Carolina
or South Carolina or even some in Florida.
So the different types of species that we have,
different shark species, are mainly the nurse shark,
but we also have lemon sharks, tiger sharks,
white sharks, bull sharks...
and I'm blanking on some other ones.
Reef sharks, just general, you know,
black tip or white tip reef sharks.
But it is a common place, you know,
when you have diversity that you saw today
and, you know, it's a big menu down there.
If I were a shark I'd wanna eat there
because there's bountiful opportunities to feed.
Shannon: All right.
And that rover that you showed was really cool,
but someone had the question,
"Is there a concern for the rover damaging
the bottom invertebrates as it crawls across the bottom?
How do you control that?"
-: Great question and I'm glad you asked that
so I could clarify.
When we deploy the rover
we have cameras on it so we know
where it's going, or where it's being dropped.
We typically also have a diver down there with it to,
you know, move it off or anything like that.
But it typically operates, or would typically
operate on the sand or on things
that would not damage the reef
because we want to preserve and conserve
those ledges as much as we can.
Conserving those ledges is one reason why
you cannot anchor while you're in the sanctuary.
Shannon: Okay, and Mark?
Mark: This might not be an easy question
to answer quickly,
but are you able to,
as best you can, touch on some of the changes
that may have been recorded at Gray's Reef
due to climate change?
-: Great question.
I don't know enough about the history
of the reef, or of the sanctuary
and what has been recorded over time.
I do know that the threats of climate change
specifically to Gray's Reef
are invasive species and as waters warm,
species that are used to warmer waters,
or different waters, staying longer
and changing the ecosystem there.
So a fish from the north coming down
to Gray's Reef during the winter
for, you know, kind of a vacation
to get out of colder waters,
staying a little bit longer than they typically do,
and changing that food web dynamic.
So that's one, is invasive species
and species staying longer.
Increased storms.
You know, the storm that we have, Ian, right now,
is bearing down, just went through Cuba
and is bearing down on Florida.
But knowing, you know, where these storms are going
is a threat to some of these.
And as climate change progresses in the next, you know.
Right now we do see climate change
as increasing the number of storms
that may come towards the South Atlantic
and towards Gray's Reef.
The third one is ocean acidification.
Gray's Reef is actually a sentinel site
for ocean acidification monitoring,
both with the weather buoy and then sensors
at the sea floor of the weather buoy.
If you remember those technologies that I went over,
there was that blue station that a diver was working on,
that is an ocean acidification monitoring station.
And so we're able to monitor ocean pH and acidity
to a great degree and for a continuous amount of time.
And I'm trying to think of the last one.
There are two more, but they don't come to mind right now,
but the main ones are
increased storm presence and intensity,
invasive species and species staying
a little bit too long, or longer than normal,
and ocean acidification.
Shannon: Okay.
And the last question is,
several people have asked what are the
visitor hours once you get opened.
-: Yeah, these hours will depend on
our volunteer support and our staff support.
The open house that is the 19th through the 22nd,
the hours for that are on Wednesday and Thursday
are from noon to 7:00.
So we have some time in the evening
for locals to come by after work and explore
the sanctuary in the Ocean Discovery Center.
And then Friday and Saturday are from
10:00 to 4:00 and we're working
to get this up on our website,
but we will have a schedule of what to expect
if you're coming down or coming across
the street to explore and get engaged
with the Gray's Reef Ocean Discovery Center.
Shannon: Okay.
Well thank you very much Ben, that was awesome.
And if we did not get to your question
or if you have additional ones,
you can always send them to Ben,
and his email address is listed here on the screen.
And we also invite you to visit
Gray's Reef's website to learn more.
A video recording of this presentation
will be available on the sanctuary's
webinar archive page,
that's found here at the top.
We will also be sending you an email
with that link to that webinar,
and it takes us about a week to get it captioned
and then to get it up onto the website.
So, it'll come just be patient,
it takes a little bit of time.
In addition, the webinar is also gonna be monitor-
I mean, I'm sorry.
It's also gonna be archived on
Monitor National Marine Sanctuary's website.
You just click on the multimedia section
in the toolbar to access the webinar box
and you'll also find future webinars
in that same section.
But as I said, don't worry,
all this information is gonna be sent to you
in an email with a follow up.
And of course we invite you to follow us on social media.
And lastly, as you exit the webinar,
there is a short survey for formal
and informal educators.
If you are an educator,
NOAA would really appreciate it if you would
just take a minute or two to complete the survey.
Your answers will help NOAA develop future
webinars to meet your needs,
and your participation is voluntary
and your answers are completely anonymous.
So once again, we want to thank you Ben
for a great presentation
and thank you to everyone who joined us today.
Have a wonderful day,
and this concludes the presentation for all.