Five miles off the Florida Keys, on a day straight off the front of a wish-you-were-here postcard, Nature Conservancy scientist Meaghan Johnson stands on the back of a small research boat and pulls on her wetsuit. Erich Bartels and Cory Walter, scientists from the Mote Marine Laboratory, shimmy into their dive gear and stuff an odd assortment of tools and supplies — surgical bone cutters, taxidermy epoxy and the kind of plastic ear tags normally used by sheep ranchers — into the pockets of their dive vests. The three divers do a quick buddy check and then plop backward off the boat.
Read the rest of the story, in the Autumn issue of Nature Conservancy Magazine, here.