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Managing Resources Underwater At Buck Island Reef National Monument

Submitted by Kurt Repanshek on March 26, 2009 - 3:21am
Quicktime

The view from Buck Island. NPS photo.

We don't often hear about the National Park System's marine sites, but one that's worth learning more about is the Buck Island Reef National Monument. You can't easily get there, as not only is it located in the Caribbean, but most of it is under water.

Here's a quick lowdown taken from the Buck Island website:

Buck Island Reef National Monument was established to preserve "one of the finest marine gardens in the Caribbean Sea." The park is one of a few fully marine protected areas in the National Park System. The 176-acre island and surrounding coral reef ecosystem support a large variety of native flora and fauna, including the hawksbill turtle and brown pelican.

Now, what's interesting about this video is that it give you a glimpse at the scientific work being done by the National Park Service and the NOAA Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment--Biogeography Branch.

This video runs just 5 minutes. If you've got the time, and the bandwidth, you can find a 20-minute video at this site, or you can request a DVD of the program. The 20-minute production "illustrates the agency partnership and showcases cutting-edge technologies to map and monitor the marine environment in an effort to evaluate the effectiveness of the marine protected areas."

Comments

Submitted by tomp on March 27, 2009 - 9:36am.

If you're interested, the NPS I&M South Florida Caribbean Network website (http://science.nature.nps.gov/im/units/sfcn/) has several video swim-throughs on their website (http://science.nature.nps.gov/im/units/sfcn/virtualtours.cfm), including during & after a coral bleaching event, as well as quite a bit of inventory information.