Coral Restoration in the Dominican Republic

• During this period (November 2013 to January 2014), a total of US$340 were received via the Global Giving website from seven donor, many thanks for the continued support, and special thanks to recurring donors. All your donations and giving this coral species a chance.

• Three monitoring trips were conducted in La Caleta Marine Park nursery to check on the conditions of coral fragments collected so far. Most of coral colonies in la Caleta coral nursery were able to recover from signs of bleaching, and only one died. Another impact found was an algae bloom around November that could have resulted in some mortality, but during 2 of the monitoring trips volunteers were able to remove most of the algae, and also got helped from decorator crabs that started colonizing the nursery in search for the abundant food supply. After the end of this period all algae had vanished.

• Funds obtained from Tropigas Foundation were used to install a new nursery in Las Galeras, Samaná (NE Dom Rep). Our volunteers were able to collect coral fragments from the area and were placed in the newly establish coral nursery. See pictures from that process.

• At the end of this period, we were able to transplant to natural reef some of fragments of coral colonies that have grown enough in the nursery, so, for those who have adopted corals in this project, know now that your corals are becoming part of a healthy reef in La Caleta Marine Park. This closes the loop of the coral nursery process. This is very good news, and we will continue with the transplantation process during the following period, so we need your continued support to allow this.

• See pictures from this reporting period.