[Coral-List] Coral Bleaching in the News : Australia's Great Barrier Reef- Keppel Islands bleaching...

[Louis Florit]

Hello Listers; ran into these links, the GBR article is new, the
St.Croix one is from May of last year, I thought they may be of
interest. I hope its not a repost.

Kind regards,
Louis

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Part of Great Barrier Reef now ‘a white desert’
New bleaching follows major event last year in Caribbean

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11821539/

New bleaching around the Keppel Islands of Australia's Great Barrier
Reef include this stand of staghorn corals, photographed on Feb. 22.

“My estimate is in the vicinity of 95 to 98 percent of the coral is
bleached in the Keppels,” said Berkelmans from the Australian Institute
of Marine Science.

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Sewage killing reefs around Virgin Islands
Study shows disease rate, book highlights stresses and global problem

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7994987/

30 percent infection rate
In the St. Croix town of Frederiksted, where untreated sewage was
regularly released during the study that started in 2001, nearly 30
percent of coral was infected with two main coral diseases — black-band
and white plague, which can kill a foot-long coral colony in a week.

Three miles north in Butler Bay, where no sewage was released, only
three or four percent was infected, the study said.

Only about 10 percent of sewage in the Caribbean and Central America is
treated before being discharged into the sea, according to the scientists.

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-- 
Louis Florit, Research Associate
University of Miami/CIMAS
NOAA/Atlantic Oceanographic Meteorological Laboratory
4301 Rickenbacker Causeway
Miami, FL 33149
Phone:  (305) 361-4445