[Coral-List] 82 Corals Status Review under the US Endangered Species Act

Billy Causey billy.causey at noaa.gov
Tue Jun 26 12:41:06 EDT 2012


Greetings Ernesto,
Thank you for your descriptive narrative on the loss of Millepora during
significant bleaching events.  In the Florida Keys, at Looe Key Reef,
during the massive coral bleaching event of 1990, we lost 65% of the
Millepora complanata along the spur and grooves of the Fore Reef alone.
Since it followed the 1987, Florida Keys and Caribbean mass bleaching
event, we were prepared to monitor the impact in July-October 1990, using
the chain transect technique that Judy Lang suggested at the 1988 Coral
Bleaching Workshop, hosted by John Ogden in St Croix, VI.

Anecdotally, it seems the Millepora is just beginning to recover slightly
in the Florida Keys, with the reefs in the Upper Keys recovering better
than those in the Lower Keys.  Other species were severely impacted 1990
and we lost significant amounts of all species at Looe Key Reef, including
Acropora species.  It was a devastating event.

Just for interest, Alina Szmant had been out to the reef with me in
mid-July and the Palythoa was already showing signs of stress to the
elevated sea-surface temperatures.  Two week later the reef both offshore
and inshore turned white!!

Just a little history.  Billy

On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 12:02 PM, Ernesto Weil <eweil at caribe.net> wrote:

> Here in Puerto Rico, Millepora populations went down significantly after
> two
> significant bleaching events, the 2005
> being the most detrimental, which also affected populations in Grenada,
> Cayman, V. Islands, and many other north and eastern Caribbean localities.
> Both M. alcicornis and M. complanata suffered high mortality in moost reefs
> of La Parguera, mostly in their preferred shallow habitats. One particular
> species, M. squarrosa, the box fire coral, completely disappeared from
> several fringing reefs. M. alcicornis and M. complanata, and the crustose
> ecomorph that overgrows and kills octocorals (whatever that is) are slowly
> coming back. However, after 6 years of surveys, I have only seen one tiny
> colony of M. squarrosa recently.
>
> EW
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> [mailto:coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov] On Behalf Of Szmant, Alina
> Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 5:59 PM
> To: Douglas Fenner; Eugene Shinn; coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> Subject: Re: [Coral-List] 82 Corals Status Review under the US Endangered
> Species Act
>
> Millepora complanata and M. alcicornis are doing exceeding well down here
> in
> Curacao...healthy, nice color and everywhere.  Maybe just get permission to
> reintroduce it to rest of Caribbean from propagules.  But first you need to
> fix whatever problem led to their demise in the first place.  If it's
> global
> warming, fat chance!
>
> *************************************************************************
> Dr. Alina M. Szmant
> Professor of Marine Biology
> Center for Marine Science and Dept of Biology and Marine Biology University
> of North Carolina Wilmington
> 5600 Marvin Moss Ln
> Wilmington NC 28409 USA
> tel:  910-962-2362  fax: 910-962-2410  cell: 910-200-3913
> http://people.uncw.edu/szmanta
> *******************************************************
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> [mailto:coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov] On Behalf Of Douglas
> Fenner
> Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 5:11 PM
> To: Eugene Shinn; coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> Subject: Re: [Coral-List] 82 Corals Status Review under the US Endangered
> Species Act
>
> Gene,
>     I've been told that Millepora grows like a weed in aquaria, and that if
> people had realized the problem, they could have been grown in aquaria and
> the species saved.  Zoos do that sort of thing for vertebrates all the
> time.  I remember reading the story of the Phoenix, Arizona, zoo, which
> gathered the last half dozen or so Arabian Oryx left in the entire world,
> and started a captive breeding program.  They brought them back from the
> brink of extinction by producing many calves.  Likewise, Whooping Cranes
> have also been brought back from the brink of extinction by captive
> breeding
> programs.  Wikipedia has these two stories. There are lots more success
> stories.   I've read that no species that has been declared under the US
> Endangered Species Act has gone extinct, but one of the papers I had in my
> references in my earlier message documented that hundreds have gone extinct
> while waiting for government to make a decision on whether to list  them.
> The Endangered Species Act makes a difference.  It certainly isn't
> perfect.
> Name anything that is.  The alternative is grim, as extinction is forever.
>
>    Cheers,  Doug
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>  From: Eugene Shinn <eshinn at marine.usf.edu>
> To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> Sent: Monday, June 25, 2012 2:55 AM
> Subject: [Coral-List] 82 Corals Status Review under the US Endangered
> Species Act
>
> Thanks Doug, I wonder if those Millipora species had been listed back in
> the
> 1980s would they be living today? Gene
> --
>
>
> No Rocks, No Water, No Ecosystem (EAS)
> ------------------------------------ -----------------------------------
> E. A. Shinn, Courtesy Professor
> University of South Florida
> College of Marine Science Room 221A
> 140 Seventh Avenue South
> St. Petersburg, FL 33701
> <eshinn at marine.usf.edu>
> Tel 727 553-1158----------------------------------
> -----------------------------------
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-- 
Billy D. Causey, Ph.D.
Regional Director
Southeast Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Region
NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries
33 East Quay Road
Key West, Florida 33040

Office:  305 809 4670 (ex 234)
Mobile: 305 395 0150
Fax:     305 293 5011
Email:  Billy.Causey at noaa.gov

Will Our Grandchildren Remember Us For What We Conserved and Protected or
For What We Let Slip Away?


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