Emergency Response to the Caribbean Coral Crisis

At Perry Institute for Marine Science, we continue to be multifaceted in our approach to curbing the Caribbean coral crisis.  Even more so this year, the devastating mass coral bleaching event provides further evidence that our oceans are constantly changing and then we must be proactive in our response to coral reefs threats. In this report we focus on two of our programs: 1. Our response to Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease, and 2. Our Reef Rescue Network, and the proactive work aimed to saving Caribbean coral reefs.

Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) is the latest described coral disease that has devastated reefs throughout Florida since 2014. In late November and December 2019, the first photographs of suspected SCTLD in The Bahamas were taken off Grand Bahama and the disease was verified to have spread over at least 60 km of reef there by March 2020. That year, SCTLD was also verified off the north coast of New Providence over a distance of at least 13 km from Paradise Island and since then it has spread around all reefs around New Providence and Rose Island. Currently the disease has been confirmed in many family islands, including Abaco, Berry Islands, Eleuthera, Cat Island, Long Island, San Salvador and Andros. 

PIMS’ coral response team, has been working in reefs around Abaco, Andros, Cat Island, Eleuthera, Exuma, San Salvador, Long Island, New Providence and Rose Island. Prioritized areas visited by PIMS team every one to three months and all corals that are affected by SCTLD as treated following our treatment decision protocol. This year over 5,400 coral colonies have been treated and retreated in different reef areas.

Along with the Department of Environmental Planning & Protection a SCTLD conclave was hosted in April with the objectives to learn about the status of SCTLD in The Bahamas, identify partners response, and discuss effective mitigation strategies and actions. PIMS staff have also conducted a number of training sessions to increase the number of individuals available to identify and treat STCTLD. Lastly, we have been working continually on communications to the Bahamian non-scientific community to raise awareness about SCTLD and other threats like coral bleaching. These communications include webinars, blogs, videos in YouTube, social media posts, and a PSA featuring Angel Cartwright, Miss Universe - The Bahamas.

Our results still support the antibiotic effectiveness to treat SCTLD-affected colonies, and how the number of treated colonies have increased after hiring more people to join the coral response team. We aim to keep growing the team and if possible, to hire and train people in the different family islands.

The Reef Rescue Network (RRN) was established in 2017 by the Perry Institute for Marine Science (PIMS), committed to improving the condition of coral reefs by restoring populations of corals and other species that will build coral reef resilience. It is the largest coral restoration initiative in The Bahamas, and has already expanded to St. Lucia and Aruba. The program works with NGOs, businesses, dive operators, and citizen scientists to establish coral nurseries throughout the Caribbean, grow and plant corals onto degraded reefs and inspire a greater regional conservation ethic. To date, we operate more than 49 coral nurseries though 30 partners with the capacity to transplant 20,000 critically endangered corals. These actions will result in meaningful restoration across large spatial scales to make substantial improvements to coral reef health and contribute to our knowledge of coral biology, ecology, reef ecosystem function and how we can improve their condition.

Specifically, the RRN helps our partners: 1) create coral restoration goals unique to their locations, 2) build coral nurseries, 3) grow corals in their nurseries, 4) outplant corals to reefs and 5) monitor the success of their restoration efforts, from the individual coral through to the entire reef ecosystem.

Just this year, we have certified 10 new PADI Open Water SCUBA Instructors and 26 new PADI Specialty Instructors.  We also provided a range of training sessions to 12 individuals that will serve as RRN snorkel guides and 24 school students have been involved in RRN outreach/education events. Despite this year’s mass bleaching event, we were able to outplant 2,450 corals and we captured 29 photomosaics at 29 plots (11 new and 18 repeat). Thirty-three Reef Rescue Divers have been certified, 18 staff have been trained to maintain coral nurseries, 11 have been trained on outplanting and data collection, and 8 have been trained to maintain artificial reef domes.

These two programs are great examples of our hands-on coral reef conservation initiatives. At PIMS, we also remain focused on active mangrove restoration projects, coral reef fish research, are developing a sustainable seafood initiative, and remain connected to community through our Community Conservation Education and Action program. We strongly believe that this holistic approach to coral reef conservation will create the conditions needed for success.

Links:

• Perry Institute for Marine Science
• Reef Rescue Network

Caribbean coral reefs are under increasing threat from a number of direct human impacts and natural disasters fueled by climate change.  Increasing sea temperatures may be the greatest overall threat to most if not all Caribbean coral reefs over the next 30 years, but the emergent disease – Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) – has spread like wildfire throughout the region, threatening several coral species with extinction and changing the diversity of coral reefs rapidly.  Because it infects so many reef building species, spreads at a rate of over a mile every month and kills so rapidly – killing corals that took centuries to grow in a matter of weeks, this disease is perhaps the greatest threat to Caribbean marine biodiversity and the value of Caribbean reefs. Because Caribbean communities are so dependent on their coral reefs for tourism, food, income, coastal protection, recreation, and the cultural significance that they hold, this crisis facing Caribbean reefs is both a natural disaster in the making and a crisis that threatens lives, livelihoods, and cultures throughout the region.  

From our base of operations in The Bahamas, the Perry Institute for Marine Science is working to reverse the decline of the region’s coral reefs through innovative scientific studies, building local capacity, and on the ground conservation and restoration of coral reefs.  Your support through GlobalGiving has contributed to our recent successes including helping us to train to train local students to scuba dive and experience their underwater treasures, teaching them about the ecology of their reefs along the way. We have also certified 8 Bahamians as scuba instructors and trained them to be Reef Rescue Diver Instructors so they they can teach others how to restore corals to reefs.  We are also growing over 10,000 critically endangered corals in nurseries throughout the Bahamas as well as other Caribbean islands and have planted over 8000 corals from nurseries back to reefs.  Finally, we have assessed the damage of Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) across most of The Bahamas and have treated thousands of corals with lifesaving antibiotics to prevent local extinctions.

While we are proud of what we have accomplished together, our work has only just begun. We will continue to build on this success to continue to scale up our efforts and expand them regionally throughout the Caribbean.  We thank the GlobalGiving Community for its continued support and hope you will continue to support our work.

Links:

• Learn more about us
• Health of Bahamian coral reefs