Caribbean Coral Suffers Record Death

[superconnected]

WASHINGTON - A one-two punch of bleaching from record hot water followed by disease has killed ancient and delicate coral in the biggest loss of reefs scientists have ever seen in Caribbean waters.

Researchers from around the globe are scrambling to figure out the extent of the loss. Early conservative estimates from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands find that about one-third of the coral in official monitoring sites has recently died.

"It's an unprecedented die-off," said National Park Service fisheries biologist Jeff Miller, who last week checked 40 stations in the Virgin Islands. "The mortality that we're seeing now is of the extremely slow-growing reef-building corals. These are corals that are the foundation of the reef ... We're talking colonies that were here when Columbus came by have died in the past three to four months."

Some of the devastated coral can never be replaced because it only grows the width of one dime a year, Miller said.

more ...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060330/ap_on_sc/coral_death

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We're screwed.

[The Stranger]

1. Congratulations, your planet is dying.

[mom cat]

10. And my other planet isn't ready yet!

:sarcasm:

[WhiteTara]

12. our planet. It is round and holds us all

there is no "away" or "there". I had a vision of us as dead people walking.

[The Stranger]

18. The greatest gift there could ever possibly be, irretreivably lost,

ruined, destroyed.

What have we done?

Hubris, pride, vanity. And if there ever was such a thing as sin, this would have been it.

What have we done?

[Ilsa]

2. We honeymooned at an eco-tourist camp at St John, US Virgin

Islands back in 1993. Wonderful snorkeling. Best my husband, a diver, had ever seen. It breaks my heart to see this happening.

[hatrack]

3. Will dying, crumbling coral reveal Natalee Holloway's body?

That's what Americans REALLY want to know!!!

[Submariner]

4. I'll 2nd that

I'm in PR now conducting a semi-annual monitoring program of the effects of the island's wastewater discharge to the offshore environment. We have been diving the same reefs around the island since 1999 monitoring any changes to the corals and sponges during that period, and during the last dives in November we noticed bleaching of our monitoring reefs for the FIRST time. It is a bad scene.

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2005/s2526.htm

[malaise]

20. It is also true that

local neglect of sewage programmes and industry pollution into the sea is not helping the situation.

[Uncle Joe]

5. Kicked with alarm.

:kick:

[SoCalDem]

6. Saharan dust kills caribbean reefs AND gives people there asthma

The ills in one part of the world transfer to others, as well.

[Ezlivin]

7. Oh the fantastic stories we'll tell our grandkids

They probably won't believe how beautiful this world once was.

And they'll probably hate us for overseeing its destruction.

[lonestarnot]

8. Behold the death of it all....

[Inland]

9. We are so screwed. nt

[bvar22]

11. The death of the Coral is caused by hot water.

Hot water also is the engine that drives hurricanes.
Expect another spectacular season on the Gulg Coast.

[Moderator]

13. Kick

[symbolman]

14. Caribbean Coral Suffers Record Death - Global Warming

A one-two punch of bleaching from record hot water followed by disease has killed ancient and delicate coral in the biggest loss of reefs scientists have ever seen in Caribbean waters.Researchers from around the globe are scrambling to figure out the extent of the loss. Early conservative estimates from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands find that about one-third of the coral in official monitoring sites has recently died.

"We haven't seen an event of this magnitude in the Caribbean before," said Mark Eakin, coordinator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Coral Reef Watch. The Caribbean is actually better off than areas of the Indian and Pacific ocean where mortality rates — mostly from warming waters — have been in the 90 percent range in past years, said Tom Goreau of the Global Coral Reef Alliance. Goreau called what's happening worldwide "an underwater holocaust."

*******snip*********

And with global warming, scientists are pessimistic about the future of coral reefs.

"The prognosis is not good," said biochemistry professor M. James Crabbe of the University of Luton near London. In early April, he will investigate coral reef mortality in Jamaica. "If you want to see a coral reef, go now, because they just won't survive in their current state."


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/03/30/national/w112002S38.DTL

[malaise]

15. There is also local and regional ungoing research

on the impact of cruise ship waste on our reefs. Tourism has not helped because stupid greedy locals used to sell the coral to visitors but that has been banned for some time.

[symbolman]

16. Not to mention that some of those cruise ships

are nothing more than "Floating TOILETS" that FLUSH in the Harbors. When I see one near the Island I tell people, "Get that goddam floating toilet outta MY YARD.."

I'm on the other side of the world, but I heard that in the Caribean on some Islands that when they have floods that the very STREETS are awash in toilet paper and Human feces.

There's a big stink going on here in Hawaii about how some whale watching cruise boats are dumping between islands, that surfers and beachcombers are finding turds on the beaches and in the water, they're trying to get the boats to wait until they come back to the harbor to pump the refuse OUT of their boats.

There have also been an increase in shark attacks, and I personally think that they are "chumming" the waters with this human waste and that the sharks may be developing a taste for HUMANS as a result. Not to mention that as the water temperature changes and the fish die in the colder, deeper waters then the sharks start cruising the shores for a bite to eat.

We've had record rains here in the Islands, flooding everywhere, there is no doubt in my mind that the weather is getting out of control, even tornadoes appearing here, that's pretty much never happened before either, this AIN'T the midwest, Wisconsin or Illinois!

If the coral dies we're screwed, when the PLANKTON DIES, then WE ARE DEAD. Trees aren't the only thing that generate Oxygen.

This article is extremely frightening, and like it said, plan that scuba diving trip soon, like within a few years, or the only coral you'll see will be in pictures...

"Daddy? What's a Tree?"

[malaise]

19. Corporate greed will kill everything bro n/t

[Zorra]

17. The republican credo: "Earth First! We'll kill the other planets later!"

And Bu*h science says there is no such thing as global warming while the Bu*h adminstration's EPA (Environmental Polluting Agency)
continues to enforce the rights of industry to pollute the planet into extinction.
:mad: