[Coral-List] Coral Bleaching Observed on coral reefs in San Andres, Colombia

Billy Causey Billy.Causey at noaa.gov
Wed Jul 13 15:15:07 EDT 2005


Greetings,
I apologize up front for any cross-postings. 

I just returned to the Florida Keys (July 8) from an International 
Advisory Board meeting with CORALINA in San Andres. On July 4th Martha 
Prada and other CORALINA staff took Cheri Recchia, Jan Steffen and 
myself snorkeling on reefs off San Andres.  While the Diadema population 
appeared to be rather abundant and healthy, some of the corals were 
showing signs of stress.  Colonies of/ Millepora complanata /were 
bleached .... with colonies ranging from fully bleached-out to colonies 
that were partially bleached.  While none of the other species of corals 
were fully bleached, there was some paling observed.

One evening, CORALINA hosted a meeting with Seaflower MPA stakeholders 
and I had a discussion with Valentino Duffis, a Fisher Advisor to 
CORALINA.  Mr Duffis said, "in his 25 years of fishing the San Andres 
Archipelago, he had never witnessed the calm weather conditions for as 
long as he has over the past few months."  His observation was that 
thermal stress was having an impact on  the marine environment.

At an October 2004 meeting in the same area ... I observed rather 
extensive coral bleaching on some of the shallow coral reefs around San 
Andres.  I believe I posted those observations at the time.

Jim Hendee .... how do we get a CREWS station in San Andres?

sincerely, Billy Causey



More information about the Coral-List mailing list