We can’t believe we are already two months into 2022, but things are moving at full speed, as always at Coral Gardeners.
In February, our restoration team monitored our unique floating nursery, situated right in front of our headquarters, where 1,014 corals are bathing on either trees, cookies or ropes. The last results are in and looking great, even though the corals on the cookies did not acclimate as well due to a disease that has spread rapidly amongst them. The team removed all the dead cookies and bumped up the tables' cleaning frequency in order to give the corals all the care they need.
This month, we took a step forward in our sustainability efforts, placing marker buoys in each of our nurseries to warn boats, tourists, and fishermen of coral nursery locations to keep them protected. Along with the buoys, we also started to test some ropes made of coconut husk fiber to see how the corals will acclimate. So far, the materials don’t seem optimal for the corals to grow around the ropes, but we will keep trying different solutions to hopefully transition to more natural and locally-sourced tools for our restoration process.
Lastly, we got to see lots of our ambassadors this month as they trickled into Mo’orea one after another, a major highlight of our month reconnecting with old friends like Chelsea Kauai, Rachel Moore, and Kelsey Williamson, just to name a few.
In case you missed it, we released our Dr. David Vaughan Campaign about our new micro-fragmentation method that will help us gear up for the upcoming mass transplantation.
