Our Mission
The EPCA is dedicated to the conservation and protection of marine life in the important region of the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean called the East Tropical Pacific Corridor or Corridor Maritimo. The broad region between the continent and the Galápagos Archipelago is a critical migratory pathway for marine fauna and is linked to marine ecosystems throughout the vast area of remote islands and continental margins. The goal of the EPCA is to encourage, facilitate, and support marine biology education and scientific research in the region.
Our plans
The EPCA aims to link together a variety of projects and campaigns focused on the fishes of the East Pacific Corridor region. Our present focus is on surveying eDNA (environmental DNA) and creating a reference DNA DATABASE for all the fish species in the Galapagos region and completing the UPDATED EDITION of the original book of the Fishes of Galapagos. The foundation more widely intends to link and facilitate research projects on marine biology, ecology, and conservation. We are positioning ourselves differently from the web of conservation and governmental organizations filling this space, by concentrating on coordinating science and scientists with critical marine biodiversity conservation goals and the promotion of DNA sequencing as a key goal for many biological and conservation priorities.
What is the East Pacific Corridor?
The tropical eastern Pacific Ocean is a rich and diverse marine ecosystem, under grave threat from climate change and damage from unrestrained development and illegal fishing. The Corridor, the marine passage above the equator between the Galápagos Archipelago and offshore islands and the continent, is a key component of the region's marine ecosystem, exposed to many serious environmental threats and affecting much of the marine ecology of the region, from California to Peru.
IS THE GALAPAGOS DAMSELFISH EXTINCT?
Has climate change doomed the Galapagos Damselfish, Azurina eupalama?
IS IT THE FIRST DOCUMENTED EXTINCTION OF A MARINE FISH?
Our team has documented the disappearance of the endemic Galapagos Damselfish, Azurina eupalama. Indeed, Jack Grove, veteran Galapagos naturalist and diver and the EPCA founder, was the last person to see and photograph the species! ... back in 1982/3, after the largest and most severe El Nino of the time. The water got especially hot and many fish species were wiped out by heat and loss of planktonic food. Unfortunately, the Galapagos damselfish was endemic, found only in the Archipelago, so there was no refuge population to supply new larvae. Worse, it depended entirely on plankton food.
It has never been seen again- and we have been looking for 40 years.
Now, with DNA technology, we can look for any sign of their DNA in the waters of the Galapagos- a way to look for the presence of species in the area, it would pick up evidence of the species in places that are not dived or surveyed. We will be surveying the islands, especially focusing on places they had been known to exist, and taking seawater samples and searching for their DNA- it would be wonderful if we find some, but it is likely that this is the first well-documented extinction of a marine fish! Most marine fishes, especially almost all tropical marine species, have larvae that float in the open ocean that makes total extinction difficult, since there are always sources of replenishment- and it is a very large ocean.
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East Pacific Corridor Alliance
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