Tampa Bay baby corals join fight to restore Florida's reefs
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Scientists at The Florida Aquarium's Coral Conservation and Research Center handle baby corals that will eventually be attached to Florida's struggling reefs. Photo: Courtesy of The Reef Institute
Thousands of baby corals took a major step this week toward saving Florida's struggling reefs.
Why it matters: They offer a glimmer of hope for a reef system that's shrunk by more than 90% due to disease and high ocean temperatures, said Keri O'Neil, Coral Conservation Program director at The Florida Aquarium.
- Coral reefs provide shelter for a quarter of the ocean's animals.
- They also drive tourism in the Sunshine State and help protect shorelines from erosion by absorbing wave energy.
State of play: Scientists this week transferred 8,500 coral babies born and grown at the aquarium's Coral Conservation and Research Center in Apollo Beach to partner organizations that will oversee their continued growth.
- Then, they'll head to reefs in South Florida and the Keys through outplanting, the process of attaching land-grown corals to ocean reefs.
Zoom in: About 4,500 corals are headed to The Reef Institute's new 23,000-square-foot facility in West Palm Beach, per a Florida Aquarium news release.
- Once they're about an inch big, scientists will attach them to reefs off the coast of Palm Beach and Martin counties. Species include great star, boulder brain, symmetrical brain and grooved brain.
- Ruskin-based Reef Renewal USA received an additional 4,000 seven-month-old grooved brain corals, which will head to reefs in the Florida Keys over the next year.
The big picture: The corals are part of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection's Coral Protection and Restoration Program, launched via executive order by Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2023.
- The goal is to restore at least 25% of Florida reefs, which stretch more than 350 miles from St. Lucie Inlet to Dry Tortugas National Park.
The bottom line: "We can prevent extinction with corals. This is a given," the aquarium's O'Neil told WUSF.
- "We can move them onto land. We can keep them happy and healthy, and we can prevent extinction, and that buys us time."
