Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
PRECIOUS CARGO
341 corals transported to South Florida from Key West to keep them from spreading a killer disease.
HOLLYWOOD – They may not be babies, but they’ve got their own special nursery.
Hundreds of corals, so delicate they needed to be shaded by a black tarp, traveled three days by boat before reaching their very own saltwater sanctuary on Thursday.
The precious cargo — 341 delicate corals plucked from the ocean floor near Key West to keep them from spreading a killer disease — will be watched over by researchers on a mission to help save our endangered reefs.
A vital part of the marine ecosystem, reefs have been dying off in record numbers across the globe.
No one really knows why. “We’ve lost 50 percent or more of the corals here in South Florida in the last four or five years,” said Professor Richard Dodge, dean of the Halmos College of Natural Sciences and Oceanography at Nova Southeastern University.
For the past few years, marine biologists and researchers at NSU’s Ocean Campus at Port Everglades have been trying to find out exactly what’s making them die off.
“We do not understand what’s causing this disease,” Dodge said. “But we are trying to stop it.”
NSU’s Ocean Campus is one of seven facilities housing rescued corals in special nurseries.
The goal is to protect the rescued coral collections from disease and one day return them to their natural home, the ocean.
“We at least want to have some that are alive and healthy to put back once this disease epidemic is past,” Dodge said.
The first batch of rescued corals, tended and watched over by
crew of 20, shipped off at 5 a.m. Monday from Stock Island near Key West.
Nearly 82 hours later, the corals arrived safe and sound at the U.S. Naval Surface Warfare base right next to the university’s Ocean Campus.
A pickup truck was waiting to collect the cargo and transport it next door to NSU’s 300-tank special saltwater nursery.
“Corals are very delicate,” said Nick Turner, a PhD candidate at the university who helped transfer the corals to their new home Thursday. “It’s hard to keep them alive in tanks.”
Too much sunshine or too little can kill them.
“We need to regulate the sunlight to make sure they get enough,” he said. “Too much sunlight is just as bad. That’s why we’re using black shade cloths to let in just enough sunlight.”
The corals were collected from 14 sites near Key West.
“This is the first of the collection
being brought to our site,” Turner said. “The long-term goal is to distribute them throughout the country to preserve them for the long term. My hope is to make sure we do our absolute best to keep these corals as happy and healthy as possible until they can be transferred to their long-term facilities.”
If all goes well, the corals will one day leave the nursery for their next destination.
The options: SeaWorld or Disney World in Orlando, the Florida Aquarium Center for Conservation in Apollo Beach or Mote Marine Lab in Sarasota.
But for now, they will stay here, under guard until they’re ready to ship off again.
And if the disease persists to kill off the reefs?
“Then these corals will be like a polar bear that can only be seen in captivity,” Turner said. “But there are some low-density corals that are resilient. It’s not all doom and gloom.”