About 30 people came to Ola Lola's Thursday evening to learn about and to volunteer for a project to begin replanting coral on the reef at Shacks - our reef!
For millennia elkhorn coral (Acropora palmata) was one of the most common corals in the shallow waters of the Caribbean. It's range covers from Biscayne National Park, Florida, in the north southward all the way to Venezuela.
In the past 30-40 years upwards of 90% of the elkhorn coral have died off, largely because of warming waters and increased acidification of the oceans. Other threats include disease, human activity and storm damage.
Coral "reseeding" is used in a number of places around the world. There are several sites here in Puerto Rico. We visited a site for staghorn coral (Acropora cervicornis) off Guanica on a dive last year.
Both elkhorn and staghorn coral reproduce by fragmentation. That is, living pieces break off and if they fall in the right places, start new colonies. In the coral farming process, fragments are collected and allowed to grow. Once they reach a certain size, they are "replanted" on the reef. Some are not replanted. Fragments taken from them and used to start a new "crop."
Most of the coral "farms" here in Puerto Rico are on the south side of the island where it is protected from winter storms and waves. Seas and shorelines here on the north are mostly too rough. Our friends Sean and Micheal, both experts from NOAA, have found a place here at Shacks they think is protected enough to begin the process.
Our "farm" will look different from the one in Guanica. Because of the waves, ours will be flat on the bottom.
So we have a group of volunteers. Some are scuba divers, some are snorkelers. All are committed to helping restore the reef. There is even hope that in the long term, we can grow enough coral to "export" to other sites. For now, we are taking the first tiny steps. Stay tuned.
No comments:
Post a Comment