Marine scientists in Florida working to help reverse a calamitous decades-long decline in coral reefs caught fishy “porch pirates” in the act with an innovative underwater doorbell-style surveillance camera.

The footage showed that three corallivorous species – redband parrotfish, foureye butterflyfish and stoplight parrotfish – were responsible for eating more than 97% of coral laid as bait by the researchers at an offshore reef near Miami.

The findings, they say, can help inform coral reef repopulation efforts following a 90% decline in Florida’s coral cover since the 1970s following unprecedented bleaching events caused by the climate emergency, particularly record ocean heat over the last two summers.

“Intense fish predation on newly outplanted corals has emerged as a major restoration bottleneck. The main goal was to address our lack of knowledge of the fish species that target corals after outplanting,” said Diego Lirman, a global leader in coral restoration research. He is a project leader and associate professor at the University of Miami’s (UM) Rosenstiel school of marine, atmospheric and earth science.

“Identifying the fish species responsible for coral predation would allow practitioners to avoid reef sites or areas within sites with high abundances of those species and, similarly, select the right coral species for the right outplanting site,” Lirman said.

“The coral-baited underwater cameras provide insight into corallivore behavior and preferences and allow documentation of predation at various sites rapidly and without incurring the cost of outplanting.”

Lirman’s team, funded by a grant from the Fish & Wildlife Foundation of Florida, designed and built a number of recording devices using GoPro cameras in waterproof housing attached to a PVC frame, and with lead weights for stability. After shaky preliminary results, divers secured later models to the seabed at Paradise Reef, close to Key Biscayne in Miami-Dade county, using masonry nails and cable ties.

The so-called C-Bruvs (coral-baited remote underwater video system) were set to record time-lapse video, and footage was collected at 24- and 48-hour periods after deployment and weekly thereafter for the duration of the six-week project.

Lirman said the team overcame initial setbacks including overheating external batteries and leaks causing flooding in the camera housing, while the research was also not immune to petty porch pirate-style pilfery familiar to homeowners above ground who have recorded thefts on their doorstep.

“One of the C-Bruvs with a surface buoy attached was stolen from the reef,” he said.

Overall, however, the researchers considered their experiment a success. After analysis of the imagery, they determined redband parrotfish, which are prolific in the Caribbean and waters off Florida, were the most voracious predators, accounting for 56.3% of bites on the nine coral species put out in fragments as bait.

Next came foureye butterflyfish with 36.9%, and stoplight parrotfish with 4%. The three species, Lirman said: “showed clear preferences” for two or three particular types of coral, which received more than 65% of all bites recorded.

UM marine scientist and research master’s graduate Erin Weisman presented the findings to the Reef Florida symposium of conservation leaders at Miami’s Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science in November.

“By identifying, for the first time, the main fish predators as well as their preferred diet, reef restoration practitioners can select sites and species that would minimize predation impacts and maximize restoration success before large-scale, costly outplanting is implemented,” Lirman said.

Future similar research, he added, could introduce elements of artificial intelligence.

“Analyses of the videos were extremely time-consuming, requiring a constant rewinding and stopping of the footage to record and annotate coral/fish interactions,” he said.

“It will be beneficial to explore AI software that can be trained to identify fish and their behaviors to automate the analysis process.”

Now it’s the Sun-shiner State.

Spring breakers in Fort Lauderdale were caught on video holding an impromptu beach prize fight — complete with betting using cryptocurrency — while locals looked on aghast.

A large crowd of rowdy party animals could be seen pushing and shoving in a chaotic circle around two young men who throw haymakers on the beautiful beaches of Fort Lauderdale to the delight of the crowd.

Local resident Joshua Pettus recorded the worrying sight while on a walk in his neighborhood, realizing something strange was going on after overhearing one spring breaker taking bets, he told NBC Miami.

“I started hearing somebody taking bets and they were doing it with crypto,” Pettus told the outlet.

“Boxing gloves came out, the ring got bigger, and I knew the fight was going to start,” he said.

Pettus’ video shows two shirtless young men throwing devastating hooks at each other as a crowd of over 100 people cheered on and recorded with their phones.

“Why aren’t they playing football? Something that is not going to get people injured,” Pettus wondered to the outlet.

Soon after the fisticuffs started flying, police arrived and broke up the beachy bout, according to NBC Miami.

“Fort Lauderdale Police witnessed and broke up two incidents on the beach and the crowd complied both times without further issues,” the city of Fort Lauderdale said in a statement.

“There have been no reported confirmed cases of betting. This type of behavior will not be tolerated,” the statement said.

The city reminded its influx of seasonal tourists that alcohol, live music, and coolers are not permitted at high-traffic beach areas.

Pettus said that while he welcomes the business that the spring breakers bring, he believes they should be maintaining a higher level of civility.

“We want your business. We want you to come and have fun and enjoy our beautiful place down here in sunny south Florida,” he said, adding, “But do it responsibly — without the violence.”

MARATHON, Fla. – An “ancient,” 322-pound loggerhead turtle is getting a new lease on life thanks to an alert scuba diver who found it severely injured off the Florida Keys, according to the Turtle Hospital.

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The “ginormous” turtle, now nicknamed “Lenny,” is estimated to be more than 60 years old and was found off the coast of Islamorada on Friday with “severe injuries to its front flipper and its head” because of a predator attack, staff said.

Diver Mike Papish worked with the Turtle Hospital and Sundance Water Sports “to organize a team to rescue the injured turtle after spotting him in distress on an earlier dive,” a Turtle Hospital news release states.

Turtle Hospital staff took Lenny via “turtle ambulance to its facility in Marathon for treatment.

“A full recovery is hoped for so the reproductive sea turtle can be returned to the wild just in time for mating season,” the news release states.