Our Environmental Mission
Bubbles Below Goes Green for Blue Water's Future
“In the end, we conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught.”
– Baba Dioum, Senegalese Naturalist
Conservation & Scientific Diving
We at Bubbles Below have played a direct roll in conserving while learning about
our beautiful waters and the creatures that inhabit them through moorings and drift dives, historical conservation, and scientific diving studies.
Scientific Diving Studies on Coral
Snowflake coral has been represented as an invasive octocoral, which is found throughout the Pacific. The diversity and amount of coral coverage on the shipwrecks had been taken over by snowflake coral. It appeared that once-live coral was now smothered by snowflake octocoral. This reduces the food source for the coral feeding fish, as there is no known predator for octocoral.
In Hawaii, the Division of Aquatic Resources has been funded by the Federal government to perform ongoing assessments to determine if we are under threat of a snowflake coral takeover, as is evidenced in the above story. Participation in this study has taken us to Kaula Rock, circumnavigating Ni’ihau underwater as well as Lehua Crater and many areas of Kauai.
What is perhaps of great significance is that during our last temperature study, it was found that Kauai is the only island in the main Hawaiian Islands to actually vary in temperature at depths below 200 feet throughout the year. The other islands do not, and Maui, Molokai, Lanai, and Oahu are having an invasion of snowflake covering as much as 90% of black coral below the depths of 200 feet, while Kauai does not have this problem. The current belief held by Tony Montgomery (Chairman of DAR – Division of Aquatic Resources) is that carijoa cannot withstand the change in temperature, so in Kauai/Ni’ihau waters during the winter temperatures and at depth the growth rate is greatly mitigated or reversed.
With the State of Hawaii cut-backs, research is dwindled to nonexistent. Fortunately, we still have the University of Hawaii, which has graduate students performing research. We also have the Institute of Marine Biology, which is also associated with the University of Hawaii where important researchers like Greta Abey work.
You can also read about our Black Coral Study by Daniel Wagner here!
