Help a Researcher Out!

With coral reefs increasingly suffering under the climate crisis, Kath Whittey (Cardiff University) is working on creating Fish Hives - artificial reef structures that can help rebuild damaged reefs. She needs your help to build and test the Fish Hives .

Kath Whittey from Cardiff University has created an artificial reef structure called Fish Hive, a concrete dome that mimics coral habitat. Kath and her team are hoping to build and deploy 12 fish hives in Tobago, Caribbean. The funds for the project are being sought through a crowdfunding page. Any size donation could help make this project possible. Larger donations will receive rewards such as an exclusive Fish Hive T-shirt!

Corals are animals which create diverse and intricate ecosystems, coral reefs.  Worldwide, the iconic and vibrant coral reefs are dying and as a result, numerous fish species are losing their habitat.

Fish Hives are created by using an inflatable space hopper toy and locally sourced bamboo to create a mould. Before these affordable artificial reef structures can be used widely, they must first be tested to see if they successfully provide a habitat for fish and space for coral settlement.

The goals of the Fish-Hive are to provide a habitat space for fish and corals, to pilot the novel structure and to monitor their progress over time.

With changing climates, the future of coral reefs are now in our hands and creating easily replicable and affordable structures could aid the survival.

For more information on Fish Hives please visit the crowdfunding page.

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