Every year, during a winter full moon, thousands of groupers gather together to spawn in a stunning underwater phenomenon.
This year, marine scientists and videographers will be on hand on Little Cayman to film and broadcast the live spawning, known as the Grouper Moon, at 10:30am each day from Tuesday, 18 Jan., to Thursday, 20 Jan., and possibly even until Friday.
The Grouper Moon Project is a collaboration between the DoE, REEF.org and other members of the Caribbean marine scientific community who have been studying the Nassau grouper spawning aggregation sites in Cayman for more than 20 years.
At one time, there were several aggregation sites across the Cayman Islands, but due to overfishing, the population of Nassau groupers were decimated. It’s only in recent years, with help as a ban on fishing in protected aggregation sites, that the numbers have started to recover.
In this year’s Grouper Moon Project, marine scientists plan to conduct live sessions from Little Cayman, going underwater where they can interact with students in classrooms around Cayman and answer their questions.
The live stream, and previous broadcasts, of the Grouper Moon can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/c/REEFGrouperMoonProjectEducation.
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