Two artificial reefs have been created by the sinking of two Corvettes, the General Pereira d’Eça (CORCEIRA – Madeira) and Afonso Cerqueira (CORDECA – Porto Santo), and monitoring of each site is now underway.
During their summer season, which took place in Porto Santo between the 4th – 14th of July 2020, the Centre for Marine and Environmental Research in Madeira (CIIMAR) team responsible for this project, together with divers from the Institute for Forests and Nature Conservation (IFCN), started their monitoring dives on the CORCEIRA reef.
Monitoring dives have also taken place on the CORDECA reef in Porto Santo and researchers have confirmed that both are not only attracting different species of fish, but is also creating their own resident community. An example of this are juvenile wrasse who were first observed in December 2019 and are now maturing. These fish not only use the reef as a refuge and habitat but as a food source, due to the algae and invertebrates that have colonised the structure of the ship
The teams will continue their work over the next week, monitoring all six reef sites.
Samantha Gannon
info at madeira-weekly.com
