Florida lawmakers urge NOAA to enhance coral rescue efforts
A bipartisan group of Florida lawmakers has written a letter to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration urging the agency to use its emergency powers to support the rescue and protection of corals threatened by the current marine heat wave.
Florida’s coral reef tract, the third largest in the world, has been suffering a coral bleaching event due to a marine heatwave this summer. Coral bleaching happens when stressors cause corals to expel the algae living in their tissues, turning the coral white.
The algae’s photosynthesis provides the coral with nutrients. If the bleaching event is short-lived, corals have been known to regain algae and recover, but if the stress is prolonged, the corals often die.
The letter, addressed to NOAA administrator Richard Spinrad, stated, “We urge you to expeditiously use the emergency mechanisms available to you under to the Coral Reef Conservation Act (CRCA) to maximize the efforts being undertaken by state and federal managers and their non-profit partners to identify and monitor continuing heat stress across the reef, maintain essential genetic diversity of coral populations, and plan for responsible reintroduction and restoration.”
Among the signees were Sen. Marco Rubio, R-FL, Rep. Darren Soto, D-FL, Sen. Rick Scott, R-FL, Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, R-FL, Neal Dunn, R-FL, Jared Moskowitz, D-FL, Scott Franklin, R-FL, Gus Bilirakis, R-FL, Anna Paulina Luna, R-FL, Carlos Gimenez, R-FL, John Rutherford, R-FL, Kathy Castor, D-FL, Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-FL, Frederica Wilson, D-FL, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-FL.
The bipartisan Coral Reef Conservation Act reauthorized and modernized the Coral Reef Conservation Act of 2000. It strengthened NOAA’s resources to help non-federal partners working on coral conservation.
Some sites around the Florida Keys are being exposed to twice the amount of heat stress that causes corals to die, and earlier in the year than ever before, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in a telephone news conference. They said the phenomenon is likely to affect the Caribbean very soon and a global bleaching event could be just around the corner.
“We are quite concerned and worried and stressed about this event,” said Ian Enochs, a research ecologist at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory. “It’s not a normal thing.”
Up and down the chain of islands that form the Florida Keys, coral rescue groups and government and academic institutions have mobilized to save the corals by relocating them to land-based facilities where they can be studied.
The goal is to figure out which coral types are best at surviving heat stress and then using them to build a more resilient reef, said Andy Bruckner, research coordinator for NOAA’s Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.
Information from The Associated Press was used to supplement this report.