Project 2 Rough Draft 2
It was a clear summer day in the middle of July the first time I went scuba diving. About 7 years ago when I was 10 years old in Turks and Caicos, it sounded like the perfect thing to do. Why not get certified in one of the most beautiful places on Earth to scuba dive. The reefs were bright and colorful and there were fish everywhere. But due to technical issues I was unsuccessful in getting certified that day but it lead me to where I am today and how much the ocean has been a part of it.
While studying about this topic in my environmental class it never occurred to me how much these oceans are starting to die. Overfishing, coral bleaching, and global warming are all factors building up to this. I never fully understood what all of this meant and how it is affecting our reefs. I thought these problems were not impacting coral reefs and if they were, it was only a minimal that you wouldn’t be able to really observe what was occurring. I was able to interview to fellow divers so they could give me their thoughts on what was and is happening to the local coral reefs.
After asking some key questions and gathering information from the two people I interviewed I processed what I had heard and what additional information I would want to gather. During the interview, I learned from both participants the reasons why they got certified to scuba dive. I also listened to their firsthand experiences of what they have observed diving over the years. Although I interviewed them separately they both gave me similar answers regarding the changes they have observed in the coral reefs. They both discussed how the colors of the coral reefs have changed and how they used to be more colorful and bright. They both also discussed how the fish population had declined. John is an avid hunter for lobster and talked about how the reefs used to be full with them and now he was lucky if he even get a few on any dive. So with this information I now had the path of where I will go with my research. What has happened to the coral reefs in South Florida over the last ten years, and why was it happening?
My first bit of research confirmed that the colors of the reefs were changing had indeed changed due to a phenomenon called coral bleaching. As described by the authors in a PLOS academic journal, “Coral bleaching is defined as the loss of pigment from algal symbionts. It has recently become a major issue with the increase of global warming and naturally warmer waters.” (Welle 2). In common terms, this means that the algae that is banded with the coral can only grow and stay healthy at a certain temperature. Once the water temperature rises just a few degrees, the algae leave the coral making it lose it pigment or coloring. There is no way for it to gain this pigment back and regain its color. Once this has happened the coral will eventually die. As with all living organisms there is no reversing the death or a coral.
Once I began to understand the symbiotic relationship between algae and the coral I started to wonder about the coral reefs in my own backyard, what this what was happening to our local coral. In a Palm Beach Post article talking about the effects of coral bleaching it stated that, “Coral reefs spanning from The Keys to Palm Beach have been hit with the worst coral bleaching incident in two decades. Coral off the coast of Broward County have which have survived 200 to 300 years are starting to feel the effects.” (Flesher). In looking at a map of South Florida I learned that the span referenced in the article, The Florida Keys to Palm Beach County is very large. The article was talking about over 200 miles of coral reefs which had experienced some type of coral bleaching. That is a lot of reef that thousands of people dive weekly. It is hard to imagine that these reefs which have survived for 200 or 300 years old were dying because of a man made problem of changes in the climate. These same reefs have lived practically unharmed for this long period of time but now were feeling the effects of the coral bleaching and something needed to change quickly or all would be lost forever.
There are many factors that are causing the deaths of the coral reefs beyond coral bleaching. In researching I learned that overfishing is causing major destruction to the reefs as well. This one was a little more difficult for me to understand why this is causing destruction at all. It would seem that overfishing would be harmless to the coral reefs and would be more of an issue regarding the fish population than it would the coral population. There are two types of fisherman, recreational and commercial. Recreational fishing would be your weekend warriors who fish whenever possible using a rod and reel. Your commercial fisherman are those who earn a living fishing. The tools they use are large nets and lines that could span for up to a mile. This is where the problem begins for the coral reef. According to the NOAA, “Traps set to close to reefs and marine debris, such as ghost trap nets, monofilament, and lines can damage coral reefs, which take a long time to recover.” (NOAA National Ocean Service). Ghost trap nets are nets that are no longer usable and thrown overboard by fisherman. These nets trap sea life into them eventually killing them. The nets settle on the ocean floor often entangling the coral and causing stress which ultimately results in it breaking and dying. Monofilament is the actual line that fisherman use when fishing. Unfortunately, this line is often thrown into the ocean and has the same effect as the ghost nets had on the coral reefs.
