Scientists in Florida have created a 'Coral Fort' from biodegradable drinking straws that can protect lab-grown coral from predators after it is transplanted into the wild.
South Florida researchers trying to prevent predatory fish from devouring laboratory-grown coral are grasping at biodegradable straws in an effort to restore what some call the rainforest of the sea. Scientists around the world have been working for years to address the decline of coral reef populations. Just last summer, reef rescue groups in South Florida and the Florida Keys were trying to save coral from rising ocean temperatures.
Marine researcher Kyle Pisano said one problem is that predators like parrot fish attempt to bite and destroy the newly transplanted coral in areas like South Florida, leaving them with less than a 40% survival rate. With projects calling for thousands of coral to be planted over the next year and tens of thousands of coral to be planted over the next decade, the losses add up when coral pieces can cost more than $100 each.
Rich Karp, a coral researcher at the University of Miami, said they've been using the Coral Forts for about a month. He pointed out that doing any work underwater takes a great deal of time and effort, so having a protective cage that dissolves when it's no longer needed basically cuts their work in half. 'Simply caging corals and then removing the cages later, that’s two times the amount of work, two times the amount of bottom time,' Karp said. 'And it’s not really scalable.
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