“For the Florida Keys’ reefs, overall, the live coral cover has diminished by 50 to 80 percent in the past 10 years,” says Margaret Miller, a coral reef researcher at the National marine Fisheries Service. According to Miller, the destruction is the result of several contributing factors, such as pollution, climate change, over-fishing, and coastal developments.

“Corals are very susceptible to warming temperatures, because their lethal temperature [temperature at which they die] and their happy, normal temperature are very close, only separated by a couple of degrees,” Miller explains.

The reef building corals are not the only creatures in trouble in Florida; the situation looks dire for many reef associated species as well.

University of Miami marine professor Jerry Ault has studied marine life in the region for more than a decade.
“The research has discovered that about 70 percent of all the snapper and grouper in the Florida keys reef system are at population levels below those considered to be sustainable,” he said. “Everybody loves Florida because of the marine environment. Folks come here to fish and to dive and to take advantage of it, but we are loving it to death.”

300,000 pounds of rock has been stolen from the bottom of the ocean near Alligator Light and Islamorada off the coast of Florida.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office wish to hear from anyone who may have seen a boat harvesting the material from the site. If you have any information about this case, please contact FWC, the

Sheriff’s Office or call the Crime Stoppers of the Florida Keys at (800) 346-TIPS. You can also leave an anonymous tip at https://www.tipsubmit.com/.

The stolen rocks belong to Neal Novak, 51, a Miami aquarist who leases the quarter-acre site inshore of Alligator Reef from the federal government to cultivate live rock for the aquarium trade. Unfortunately, Novak hasn’t visited his farm in a year so it is hard to know when the theft took place.

Live rock consists of dead coral rock or quarried rock colonized by a profusion of marine species. Anything from tiny bacteria to large sponges can find a home in and on this type of “living” rock, and rocks covered in colourful coralline algae are especially coveted. Saltwater aquarists use live rock to make their aquariums look more beautiful, make the ecosystem more balanced, and help keep the water quality up in the tank. Live rocks are often colonized by scavenging species that will take care of any left-over food in the aquarium before it gets a chance to foul the water. According to Novak, the wholesale price for quality live rock in Florida is about $3 per pound.

Since the harvest of live rock from the wild can hurt marine environments, Florida banned it in the 1990s and state and federal governments decided to lease barren sea-bottom sites to people interested in aqua-culturing live rock for the aquarium trade.

Novak created his live rock farm by purchasing rock from quarries in south Miami-Dade County and ferrying them to his farm where the rocks have been resting in roughly 20 feet (6 metre) of water until someone took them. The rock pile, which was designated by GPS coordinates, has most likely not been moved by natural forces, because no hurricanes have been reported from the area since 2005 and a second stone pile with immature live rock was left largely intact.

With a wholesale price of $3 per pound, 300,000 pounds of rock can naturally give a tidy little profit for unscrupulous boulder thieves.

“They stole my livelihood,” Novak said. “This is devastating to my whole family. It cost me almost $150,000 to put the rock down and start the business. I spent my life savings to make this work. We could be looking at bankruptcy.”

Florida will soon have the strictest conservation law for the harvest of imperilled freshwater turtles in the U.S. The new legislation pertains to all freshwater turtles on Florida’s imperilled species list plus species that look similar to the imperilled species, which include common snapping turtles and cooters.

• Commercial harvesting of these freshwater turtles will be prohibited.
• Individuals will still be allowed to take these freshwater turtles for non-commercial use, but no more than one turtle per day per person.
• Transporting more than one of these turtles per day will be prohibited.
• Collecting freshwater turtle eggs will be prohibited.

Turtle farms that depend on turtles collected from the wild will still be allowed to collect turtles, but only if adhering to a strict set of rules and only in order to establish reproduction in captivity to make the farm self-sustaining.

“I believe this industry should be moved to aquaculture, said Rodney Barreto, chairman of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). “That’s the logical place for it to be.”

The closed season for the take of softshell turtles, May 1 to July 31, will not change under the new rule.

When long-line fishing boat captain Rodney Solomon reeled in an air-to-air missile 50 miles (80km) off Panama City in Florida, he did what anyone would have done – strapped it to his boat and enjoyed the remaining 10 days of his fishing trip.

After returning from his trip, Solomon reported his unusual find to the local fire department only to find out that the missile was live and could have gone off any time.

Mr Solomon told local news organisation WTSP that fishermen are used to being in danger and are usually unflappable. “We’re fishermen, nothing scares us!”

But he admits that this experience “was kind of a fright“.

“It was like, ‘wow man, you all took a big chance bringing in this missile, he said. “You had it on your boat for 10 days and any time it could have exploded on you.”

Sidewinder

Solomon had assumed that the missile had gone off earlier since he found a hole in it.

“He actually came to the fire station and told us he had caught a Tomahawk missile, said local fire chief, Derryl O’Neal, “but it turned out not to be – it was an air-to-air guided missile, known as a Sidewinder“.

The firemen quickly evacuated the area around the missile until and the deadly device could eventually be dismantled without causing any damages. The missile was caught in or near a zone used by defence forces for testing.

Local fishermen are being advised not to bring in any similar discovery, but to alert authorities to its exact location.

Bottle nosed dolphins living along the coast of Florida are getting used to supplement their diet by snatching bait from fishing lines or circle recreational anglers practising catch-and-release. Some dolphins have even made a habit out of routinely approaching humans to beg for food.

Scientists at the National Marine Fisheries Service have now been able to show that this behaviour is spread down through generations of dolphins.

“We are able to document lineage, from grandmother to mother to calf, all following fishing boats and taking thrown-back fish,” says Jessica Powell, a National Marine Fisheries Service biologist.

Dolphins begging for food might be an endearing sight, but approaching humans in this fashion means taking a great risk. In 2006, three dead Sarasota Bay dolphins turned out to have fishing lures stuck inside them.

“Whenever animals become reliant on humans for food, it puts them at jeopardy,” says Dr. Randy Wells, director of dolphin research at Sarasota’s Mote Marine Laboratory. “If they are coming to boats or piers to get fish, they are swimming through a maze of lines, hooks and lures and those lines are designed to be invisible under water.”

Some dolphins do however seem to have figure out how to stay clear of harms way. A bottlenose dolphin nicknamed “Beggar” has been soliciting free meals in a narrow stretch of Intracoastal Waterway near Nokomis Beach since he was a juvenile 20 years ago. Despite routinely swimming just inches from boat propellers, the skin of Beggar’s 8 feet long body is free of major scars. Hopefully, the same is true for the inside of his 400 pound body.

As if the menace of razor sharp propeller blades, invisible fishing lines and jagged double hooks weren’t enough, bottlenose dolphins also stand the risk of encountering anglers who may not appreciate having their bait or catch snatched away by a hungry cetacean. A commercial fisherman out of Panama City, Florida has been sentenced to two years in prison after throwing pipe bombs at dolphins trying to steal his catch. Off Panama City, tour operators have been feeding dolphins for years to assure their presence at the popular “swim-with-the-dolphins” tours.

Feeding the Florida dolphins is illegal under both state and federal law, with federal law banning wild dolphin feeding in the early 1990s. Feeding wild dolphins can also be dangerous and the abovementioned “Beggar” dolphin has for instance sent dozens of overfriendly patters to the hospital for stitches and antibiotics.

Hand-feeding aside, a severe red tide in 2005 seems to have made the habit of interacting with humans for food much more widespread than before among the Florida dolphins. The red tide wiped out 75-95 percent of the dolphin’s usual prey fish and the hungry dolphins eventually realised that they could fill their bellies by picking bait fish off fishing lines.

“We suspect that the dolphins were
hungry,” Wells explains. “Their main prey
base was gone. Seeing a fresh pin fish
dangling from a line might look pretty
good to them. And once they learned
that anglers are a source of food, they
don’t forget that very quickly.”

As reported earlier here and here, the retired 523-foot military vessel “Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg” was scheduled to be sunk this month to become an artificial reef off the Floridian coast, and we can now happily report that everything has gone according to plan.

After being slightly delayed last minute by a sea turtle venturing into the sinking zone, Vandenberg was successfully put to rest roughly 7 miles south-southeast of Key West at 10:24 a.m., May 27.

Once 44 carefully positioned explosive charges had been detonated, Vandenberg gracefully slipped below the water’s surface in no more than 1 minute and 54 seconds. It is now resting rightside-up on the sea bottom at a depth of roughly 140 feet (43 metres) in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.

Divers and other underwater specialists are currently surveying the ship to make sure it is safe for the public to explore. Hopefully, Vandenberg will open up for public diving by Friday morning.

Over 20 cameras were mounted on the vessel to capture images of it descending into the blue, cameras that are now being retrieved by an underwater team.

Vandenberg is the second largest vessel ever intentionally sunk to become an artificial reef. In 2006, the 888-foot long USS Oriskany, also known as CV-34, was sunk in the Gulf of Mexico, south of Pensacola, Florida.

A sinking date has now been set for the retired military vessel scheduled to form an artificial reef off Key West in Florida. If everything goes according to plan, Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg – a 523-foot-long military ship that used to track Russian missile launches during the Cold War – will be sunk seven miles (11 km) south of Key West on May 27.

“Our sink window opens Wednesday, May 27, and that’s the date we’re currently targeting,” said Jim Scholl, Key West’s city manager and project administrator. “However, there are factors that could delay the scuttling, including weather and other unforeseen circumstances.”

A definite time for the sinking has not yet been set, but the event will probably take place during late morning, officials said.

During the sinking, a one-mile perimeter will be enforced on the water and in the air by the U.S. Coast Guard, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, and other U.S. law enforcement agencies.

Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg is currently waiting in Key West Harbor.

The Florida legislature has unanimously passed a bill to create the “Florida Coral Reef Protection Act”.

The new act will protect Florida’s coral reefs from boat groundings and injuries caused by anchoring by providing penalties for anchoring on a coral reef or making any other vessel damages the corals. Depending on the nature and extent of the damage, wrongdoers will pay damages ranging form $150 to $250,000.

The “Florida Coral Reef Protection Act” applies to all State waters that contain coral reefs off the coasts of Broward, Martin, Miami-Dade, Monroe, and Palm Beach counties.

The legislature determined that coral reefs are valuable natural resources that contribute ecologically, aesthetically, and economically to the state of Florida. It also declared that it is in the best interest of the state of Florida to clarify the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s powers and authority to protect coral reefs through timely and efficient recovery of monetary damages resulting from vessel groundings and anchoring related injuries.

The passage of the act has been preceded by several months of negotiations among various state agencies, stakeholder and environmental groups, including the Marine Industry Association and Reef Relief whose involvement greatly contributed to the act becoming a reality. Another important participant was the Palm Beach County Reef Rescue which has worked with the regulatory community for several years to develop a more effective enforcement strategy against coral reef anchoring.

To see a link to the legislation click here

After a request from the Mexico Fishery Management Council, NOAA’s* Fisheries Service announced an emergency rule to protect the threatened sea turtles living in the Gulf of Mexico.

The emergency rule, which was announced on April 30, will take effect on May 18. From May 18 and onwards, the commercial reef fish longline fleet active in these waters will only be allowed to fish seaward of a line approximating the 50-fathom contour in the Gulf of Mexico. (Current regulations allow the fleet to fish as close as the 20-fathoms line.)

The emergency rule will also outlaw all reef fish longline fishing east of 85 degrees 30 minutes west longitude in the Gulf of Mexico after the quotas for deep water grouper and tilefish are reached.

The Mexico Fishery Management Council requested the emergency rule after a NOAA observer study documented how the reef fish longline fleet was incidentally catching and killing a substantial amount of loggerhead sea turtles, a species listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act.

The emergency rule will be in effect for 180 days, but can be extended for up to an additional 186 days if necessary. The new rule will primarily affect those who fish for shallow-water grouper species, such as the popular food fish red grouper, since this type of fishing typically takes place in shallow waters within the 50-fathom contour off the west Florida shelf. Fishermen and groupers are however not the only ones occupying this area – it is also a very important feeding ground for sea turtles and therefore the place where most of the incidental sea turtle by-catches take place.

“We are working closely with the council and constituents to find more permanent solutions to protect sea turtles affected by this fishing gear,” said Roy Crabtree, NOAA’s Fisheries Service southeast regional administrator. “I hope we can identify options that not only provide sea turtles the protection they need, but minimize the economic affects to the fishing industry.”

The Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council is also considering actions to address the problem on a long-term basis.

The emergency rule is implemented in accordance with both the Endangered Species Act and the Magnuson-Stevens Act. The Magnuson-Stevens Act requires that conservation and management measures minimize bycatch of non-target species and minimize mortality when bycatch cannot be avoided.

* National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

As part of a reef restoration study, researchers removed 20 specimens of the Caribbean giant barrel sponge from the Conch Reef off of Key Largo, Florida and then re-attached them using sponge holders consisting of polyvinyl chloride piping. The sponge holders were anchored in concrete blocks set on a plastic mesh base. Some sponges were reattached at a depth of 15 meters and some further down at 30 metres.

Venus Flower Basket sponge. A deep sea glass species.

The results of the study now show that sponges are capable of reattaching themselves to reefs if we help them by keeping them properly secured during the recuperation period. After being held stationary by sponge holders for as little as 6 months the sponges had reattached themselves to the Conch Reef. Of the 20 specimens reattached in 2004 and 2005, 62.5 percent survived at least 2.3-3 years and 90 percent of the sponges attached in deep water locations survived. During the study period, the area endured no less than four hurricanes.

This is very good news for anyone interested in reef restoration, since the new technique can be used to rescue sponges that have been dislodged from reefs by human activities or storms. Each year, a large number of sponges are extricated from reefs by human activities such as vessel groundings and the cutting movements of chains and ropes moving along with debris in strong currents. Severe storms can also rip sponges from the reef, which wouldn’t be a problem if it weren’t for the fact that so many sponges are also being removed by human activities. When combined, storms and human activities risk decimating sponge populations. Old sponges can be hundreds or even thousands of years old and their diameter can exceed 1 meter (over 3 feet). Sponges of such an impressive size and age can naturally not be rapidly replaced by new sponges if they die.

Sponges can survive for quite a while after being dislodged but is difficult for them to reattach themselves to reefs without any help since they tend to be swept away by currents and end up between reef spurs on sand or rubble, where they slowly erode and eventually die.

“The worldwide decline of coral reef ecosystems has prompted many local restoration efforts, which typically focus on reattachment of reef-building corals,” says Professor Joseph Pawlik of the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, co-author of the study. “Despite their dominance on coral reefs, large sponges are generally excluded from restoration efforts because of a lack of suitable methods for sponge reattachment.”

The results of the study, which were published in Restoration Ecology, show that we can help the sponges to survive by using the new technique. Earlier attempts were less successful since they relied on cement or epoxy; two types of adhesives that do not bind well to sponge tissue.