2022 spawning

In November 2022, we collected millions of bundles of coral spawn from Moore reef on Gunggandji sea country. We camped out on the Reef Magic pontoon for a week while the fertilised eggs developed into 8 million competent larvae. Then we transferred 6 million larvae to settle on Hastings reef on Yirrganydji sea country, leaving 2 million behind at the parent reef, Moore.

Checking corals have ripe eggs
Spawn catcher very full!
Developing coral embryos
Larvae developing in pontoon nets
(photo: Lloyd Shepherd)
Larval rearing nets (photo: Nicole McLaughlin)
Monitoring larval development
Preparing larvae for transfer
Larvae going into large settlement nets
Small settlement nets
Gravity-fed delivery, releasing larvae to reef substrate without containment.
Collecting settlement tiles the next day
Tile kebab, mmm, yummy.
Yay, 1 day old coral spat, successfully settled! Seeing them on our tiles is a good indication they’re also on the natural reef.
Here’s a two minute highlight reel of our two week field season in November 2022.

Reef Recruits co-led this Reef Cooperative project with our excellent friends and colleagues from Tropwater JCU, with fantastic support from GBR Biology, Reef Magic Cairns, Citizens of the GBR and Dawul Wuru Aboriginal Corporation. A highlight was working alongside Indigenous rangers from the Gunggandji and Yirrganydji peoples, it was a privilege to share this experience with them. We are all grateful to the Cotton On Foundation for funding this project