…broken homes and abandoned children

Father’s Day has come and gone, but in the sea it’s not much to celebrate.  Family life and parenting, as people understand them, don’t happen.  Most children are abandoned even before they’re born, and for the rest, casual single parents are the norm.

Marine mammals – whales and dolphins – are the exception.  They have only one live baby at a time.  Babies stay with their fiercely protective mothers for more than a year, and usually remain with the group into which they were born for most of their lives.  The fathers, however, hang out with the other bachelors, eating, playing and chasing girls.

Nurse sharks and stingrays are a fairly common sight on Montego Bay’s reefs, usually lying in the sand or under a ledge.  They also have live babies.  These newborn “pups” – little copies of their mothers -- immediately look for shelter and start taking care of themselves.  They are often found among mangrove roots, where there are good hiding places and the mud bottom contains lots of the small crabs, snails and worms they like to eat.

For sea turtles, most fish and smaller sea creatures, survival depends on producing huge numbers of eggs in the hope that a few of the children will escape being eaten, trapped or killed by pollution and disease long enough to become breeding adults. Some eggs are carefully laid in holes or attached to plants or rocks.  Many more, including those of wrasses, parrotfish, jacks, groupers and snappers, are simply released into the water and drift on the currents.  Most of these abandoned eggs are eaten before they hatch.

There are a few exceptions.  Mother lobsters, for example, attach their eggs to their bodies and carry them around until they are ready to hatch.  The “closed season” for lobster fishing is meant to allow time for this to happen.  A mother octopus lays up to half a million eggs on strings in a secure den, and stays with the eggs, guarding, cleaning and ventilating them, for up to five months.  While she is tending the eggs the octopus doesn’t feed and leaves the nest only to fend off intruders.  Usually, the mothers die, starved and exhausted, shortly after the last egg hatches.

Most fathers take no interest at all, but there are exceptions.  These include the sergeant-major, a damselfish common on our shallow reefs.  Males change colour from bright yellow and black stripes on a silvery body to almost solid dark gray while they are guarding sheets of bright purple eggs.  Jawfish fathers gather up fresh-laid eggs and hold them in their very large mouths until they hatch.

All these orphans need a safe place to grow up, and that’s what Fisheries and the Marine Park Trust are trying to do with the sanctuaries in Montego Bay and the Bogue Lagoon.  The young fish and sea creatures need clean water, sheltered places and protection from illegal spearing, netting and trapping.  Everybody can help.  First, if you see illegal fishing or dumping of garbage or sewage in the sea, report it (952-5619).  
Then, become a member of the Marine Park Trust.  It’s an easy and cheap (just J$1,000) way to show that you care about the health, beauty and prosperity of your community.  For more information, go to the website or call the office (952-5619).

Mangroves are like nursery schools for many of colorful fish that populate coral reefs. Among the roots and nutrient-rich waters in coastal mangrove swamps, juvenile fish get food and protection from predators until they mature and can migrate offshore to the reefs. These valuable nurseries are disappearing at an alarming rate, and so are the fish they support. (Illustration by E. Paul Oberlander, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)