Thailand's Conservation Efforts

[Coral Hind]

I just got back from a two week trip to Thailand were I attended a wedding for my AFS brother. I just thought I would share some pictures from a project to repair a damaged reef there. The impact of a typhoon and a coral bleaching El Nino event has left the reef almost completely dead. My friend set it up so that I was taken by the Thai Navy Seals to an island just south of the port city of Samaesan were the Navy has a staging facility to help them rebuild the local reefs. I was not allowed to take pictures of the frogmen, not that it mattered because their faces were covered the whole five hours we were on the island. I was also not able to find any SCUBA gear on short notice in the small fishing town so the pics I was able to take were from snorkeling only.

 

 

Some new PVC frames that were made while I was there.

 

Here is a pic of some frames set about 25 feet down and about 400ft from the beach.

 

The clams seem to be recovering very fast. Here is one on top of a recovering Montipora colony. Most of the large montipora colonies were completely dead on top with only the sides showing any new growth.

 

Here is a green one. We saw hundreds of empty clam shells that were over a foot in size so this reef must have looked awesome a few years ago. You can see the spines of an urchin in the top left corner.

 

I went down to take a picture of some small Heniochus and Copperband butterflies but they swam under and into the corals too fast. Because the corals have died back the algae has had more surface to grow on. As a result there were a lot of very large urchins mowing down the area.

 

Here was one of my favorite clams with a small damsel. I had to dive down to take the pic so sorry it is not real clear.

 

Another clam that was over a foot long at a depth of about 15ft.

 

A Fungia that is growing on the side of an old coral. Some Stylophoras can also be seen in the picture.

 

I took a lot of pictures farther off the beach where the reef was covered with very large green and purple staghorn colonies and fields of Heteractis magnifica and Amphiprion perideraion but because of the 30 feet plus depth and me only using a snorkel they didn't turn out well enough to post.

[DDiver]

That's awesome Dave, thanks for sharing.hope u had a great time

[Coral Hind]

That's awesome Dave, thanks for sharing.hope u had a great time

 

It was an awesome trip that ended too fast. We also visited a sea turtle farm that was run by the Navy.

 

 

8-10 week old turtles.

 

This was a very large, over three feet long turtle. Photo was taken under water in a not so clear pool.

[L8 2 RISE]

That's really cool, also cool that the navy was so involved. What does AFS stand for?

[Origami]

Thanks for sharing, David. It's sad to see such damage to the reef, but encouraging to see some new growth taking place. Let's hope things start flourishing once again.

[Coral Hind]

That's really cool, also cool that the navy was so involved. What does AFS stand for?

 

Sorry about the that. It stands for American Field Service.

[Coral Hind]

During my visit with the Navy Seals they told me about a place in town that breed "cartoon" fish and they recently released 5,000 of these "cartoon" fish. Well I was impressed and curious to find this "cartoon" fishery.

 

About a mile out the gate of the base I found a large corrugated roof structure with large concrete tanks under it. I actually drove right by it on my way to the base that morning.

 

 

I flashed my WAMAS card and I got a very cool tour of the place. I was told they had 150 pairs of differing kinds of clownfish, 100 pairs were in fact Percula. They pump out at least 15,000 clownfish per month. And yes, they did donated more than 5,000 "cartoon" fish to Thai Royal Navy Base in Sataheep for release back into the sea. They helped a local school set up a course to teach clownfish bleeding and support the village people to breed clownfish under the One Tumbon One Product (OTOP) government sponsored program established by the King for rural economic development. "Long Live The King!" There were several students from Burapha University at the facility the day I visited and they were learning to breed clownfish as part of their Marine Biology program. Alright, on to the photos.

 

Here is a pic of my wife standing in the first section of the facility. Some of the tanks held other locally caught fish such as tangs, groupers, butterflies and blacktip reef sharks. Note the blue tub in the bottom right corner of the picture as a close up of that tank is next.

 

There were about five kinds of clowns in this tub and they were getting ready to be bagged for shipment.

 

Another section of the building had concrete tanks with breeding pairs of more difficult species then the A. Percula and A. Ocellaris.

 

A very large female of a pair with eggs inside the PVC pipe.

 

The bottom floor of the enclosed building housed grow out tanks. The plastic covered glass tanks are where the newly hatched fish go until they graduate to the larger concrete tanks. Above this room on the second floor was about a hundred tanks of about the 20 gallon size with the normal ceramic tile setup for breeding A. Percula and A. Ocellaris. All the water for this facility was taken straight from the Samaesan harbor.

[Supreme Reefs]

Wow! i would love to work there helping out with the reef

Edited January 2, 2010 by Bn251

[st9z]

Wow Thailand! Sooo jealous of you I haven't been back since 2006. Is the food still delicious??

[ctenophore]

Nice photos! What a great trip, Thailand, reefs, AND a huge aquaculture facility. Reef geek heaven!

 

I like their PVC coral frames in blue, I will have to find blue for my next set of frames.

 

That's crazy that they're breeding 15k fish/month.

[sen5241b]

Wow Thailand! Sooo jealous of you I haven't been back since 2006. Is the food still delicious??

 

No, its all hamburgers and fries.

[Coral Hind]

Wow Thailand! Sooo jealous of you I haven't been back since 2006. Is the food still delicious??

 

Oh yeah, and still very freaking HOT!! I actually tried the durian fruit but I passed on the giant water beetles.

 

 

This grouper was about 5 feet long and being held at the clownfish farm. It was scheduled to be shipped to an aquarium in Dubai.

 

There were about a hundred Paracanthurus hepatus in this outside tank. I had never seen hippos so fat before.

[Sharkey18]

Awesome photos Dave! Thanks for sharing.

 

Laura