[Coral-List] Coral relocation

Robert Bourke rbourke at OCEANIT.COM
Mon Sep 30 14:02:00 EDT 2013


Dennis;
	There are likely as many ways to poorly transplant corals as there are ways to poorly transplant tomato plants, pine trees, or polar bears.  The fact that your team successfully found one of the ways that doesn't work should not discourage others, but rather provide a valuable lesson.  With hind-sight perhaps you should have wondered "Hummm... why are there no corals on these raised ledges?" and placed some of the colonies in more sheltered positions.   To act as effective stewards of the environment it is our responsibility to learn how to manage these resources.  Humankind learned how to manage tomato plants a few thousand years ago, and over the past two hundred years we've done a pretty good job in learning how to grow and manage pine tree forests - while still allowing you to build your house out of lumber.  The polar bears and the coral reefs we've still got to figure out.  

Bob Bourke
Environmental Scientist
Hawaii

-----Original Message-----
From: coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov [mailto:coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov] On Behalf Of Dennis Hubbard
Sent: Monday, September 30, 2013 3:42 AM
To: Iain Macdonald
Cc: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Coral relocation

I'll be interested to see what this "reef" looks like in 10 years. We transplanted a bunch of corals years ago in conjunction with a beach nourishment project. In the short run (~5 years), the transplants did better than the natural ones nearby that were not moved - owing largely to the fact that we perched them up a little higher and away from day-to-day sediment stresses.. But over time, that pattern reversed and now they are all dead from storms, not climate change.

The harsh reality is that moving corals into an area they do not already inhabit is the equivalent of moving poor folks into a really plush but burning building - and the only thing that flourishes is the bank account of the consultant who got the gig for the transplantation. In the VI, there is a consultant who built a house with gold faucets (literally) on their profits...... the consultant was jokingly but appropriately referred to by local environmentalists as the "biostitute".

Dennis


On Sun, Sep 29, 2013 at 6:49 AM, Iain Macdonald
<dr_iamacdonald at yahoo.co.uk>wrote:

> Interesting bbc video on Dubai's efforts. Perhaps there is data 
> published on it aswell. Is this the aquarium with the Whale Shark?
>
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24297821
>
> Iain Macd.
> _______________________________________________
> Coral-List mailing list
> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
>



--
Dennis Hubbard
Chair, Dept of Geology-Oberlin College Oberlin OH 44074
(440) 775-8346

* "When you get on the wrong train.... every stop is the wrong stop"*  Benjamin Stein: "*Ludes, A Ballad of the Drug and the Dream*"
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