FL - Some South Florida coral reefs bouncing back from devastatingly ..
MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – This summer has been devastating for Florida’s reef tract, with a mass bleaching event mostly impacting corals in the Florida Keys and Dry Tortugas.
Local 10 News’ Louis Aguirre recently joined a team of scientists and conservationists to check on how the reefs are doing closer to Miami, a mission that also included cleaning up all the marine debris that puts even more pressure on our fragile corals.
The group that included a team of coral scientists from Rescue A Reef, FDEP’s Southeast Florida Action Network SEAFAN and volunteers with Debris Free Oceans left the Miami Beach Marina bright and early on a Sunday morning.
“It’s extra hot out here this summer,” said Bonnie Waxman, programs manager for Debris Free Oceans. “And it’s not just us who feel it, but the reefs have really taken a beating.”
For months Local 10 News has been reporting on the mass bleaching event devastating South Florida’s coral reefs, triggered by extremely warm ocean temperatures fueled by the hottest summer ever recorded on planet earth.
On this day, the group was heading out to check on two reefs a few miles off the coast of Miami.
Their first dive was at Paradise Reef, three miles off Key Biscayne and home to the University of Miami’s Rescue A Reef’s coral nursery.
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RELATED LINKS
Bleach Watch: https://floridadep.gov/rcp/coral/content/bleachwatch
Rescue A Reef: https://rescueareef.earth.miami.edu/
Debris Free Oceans: https://debrisfreeoceans.org/
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“We have multiple study sites deployed here,” said said Remedy Rule, research associate with Rescue A Reef. “We’ve been working on this reef for about a year with the EPA grant.”
When the bleaching event began in July, hundreds of coral fragments were removed, rescued from the heat and relocated into climate controlled tanks at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School. It’s now two months later and the team is surveying how the reef is doing.
“We’re kind of on the tail end of the bleaching season, we’re still on an alert two,” said Rule. “We’re looking at both the corals we outplanted, as well as wild corals, in assessing the bleaching status. Are they paling, are they partially bleached, are they fully bleached?”
On the dive, they found Paradise Reef full of life and full of color.
Though the bleaching event has devastated the reef tract in the Florida Keys, the corals north of Key Largo seem to be doing better.
“I definitely saw some healthy corals, so that was good to see,” said Rule. “And it looks like the ones that have been failing or bleached, they’re starting to recover.”
Important data was collected for SEAFAN’s Bleachwatch as volunteer divers with Debris Free Ocean removed all the litter and ghost gear adding extra pressure to these stressed out corals.
“Picking up the debris off the reefs that are so close to the Port of Miami is such an important and critical effect on how we can help,” said Waxman. “We were out here just last week, and we found not one but two Publix bags hanging off the reef.”
