Super-heated seawater off the Florida Keys has grown so perilous to the world's third-largest barrier reef that scientists are now removing samples of coral from ocean nurseries to place in cooler land-based tanks.
Sea temperatures off Florida have risen to extraordinary highs this month, presenting a severe threat to the barrier reef.
Neufeld's nonprofit group, working with other local groups, has been collecting samples of genetic strains of coral from nurseries"and pulling them into land-based facilities where the water parameters can be controlled, and where they can be safeguarded," he said. Brian Branigan, a 65-year-old boat captain who rents launches to tourists from Big Pine Key , says the warming has shaken him"What has happened in the last two weeks is terrible, shocking. I wanted to cry myself, when I was in the water, snorkeling to see this," he said as he took AFP to Looe Key National Marine Sanctuary, some five miles off the coast.
Bleaching occurs when stressed coral expel algae living in symbiosis with them, providing them with nutrients and giving them color.According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Florida's coral reefs generate $2 billion in local revenue and 70,400 full- and part-time jobs. Branigan, who learned to scuba dive 48 years ago, depends heavily on sport fishermen and scuba aficionados to rent his boats.
"We've taken representatives from all of those corals and... we've actually moved them to physically different locations to further safeguard and build in a bit of redundancy for those critical species," he said.
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