Georgia Aquarium works to help restore coral reefs

ATLANTA – Corals in Florida are dying in record numbers due to historically high water temperatures off the Florida Keys. The Georgia Aquarium is part of a select group working to save and restore the reefs.

With water temperatures reaching over 100 degrees at some spots in the Keys, many of the corals in the coral reefs are beaching where they turn white and eventually die. The Coral Restoration Foundation says Sombreo Reef near Marathon is a total loss.

“They have a relationship with a type of algae called zooxanthellae and when the water temperature gets to warm, they expel that zooxanthellae into the water column and that leaves them looking pale or even white,” Steve Hartter, Associate Curator with the Georgia Aquarium, explained.

“They get most of their nutrition from that zooxanthellae that lives inside of them, so they essentially can starve to death,” he added.

And with the warmest months still ahead, it’s a problem Hartter says can only get worse.

“If we have a bleaching event that might occur in, say, late August or September, the water is going to be cooling down soon thereafter, so it might give the corals more of an opportunity to recover,” he explained.

That’s where organizations like the Georgia Aquarium come in. They’re one of 19 zoos and aquariums across the country that make up the Florida Reef Tract Rescue Project.

The aquarium is currently housing several species of Florida coral in a lab rescued years ago from a reef with Stony Coral Tissue Disease.

 “What we’re hoping to do is be able to add those corals back out into the ocean or add their offspring back out in the ocean and help restore those reefs,” Hartter explained.

Hartter was also part of a team working with the Coral Restoration Foundation earlier this year to create a “Coral Bus” to bring corals to nurseries onshore.

It’s a recovery effort that will take years, but one Hartter said is important for more than just the beauty of the reefs.

“They can absorb anywhere from about 85-97 percent of storm energy that comes through. So the loss of these corals leaves those areas exposed to even more damaging storms and hurricanes,” Hartter explained.

“These are basically the rainforests of the ocean they hold about 25 percent of all ocean species and they only occur in about 1% of the ocean so if we lose these reef systems we are losing a huge chunk of the marine species that exist,” he added.