Florida Coral Rescue Center continues work to save coral reefs
It's been two years since WESH 2 got an up-close tour of the Florida Coral Rescue Center in Orlando. Since then, the coral have been doing really well.
The rescue center's goal is to save coral from the Florida reef track and help them reproduce. Coral is a living organism that's critical to our ocean's health.
But rising water temperatures and disease are putting coral in jeopardy.
In the two years since WESH 2 first visited, and the rescue center has spawned 22 new coral babies.
Justin Zimmerman, the Florida Coral Rescue Center aquarium supervisor said, "We're learning every day about how these corals reproduce. We're seeing some of this for the first time. In example, we were the first institution to ever spawn these corals.”
Scientists here say they can raise more coral babies, but the problem is the size.
In one night coral can spawn tens of thousands of larvae but there's absolutely no room to raise all those babies.
Also, there’s also not enough room partially because the adult coral have also been growing.
“You can see the corals in this aquarium have probably almost doubled in their surface area. We've moved them to larger tiles,” Zimmerman said.
When we first saw the 2,000-square-foot facility in 2022, the rescue center housed 700 coral. Now there are 850!
“We were able to take some of the surplus coral and move that to sea world property so our guests can come to the park and now see the coral and be educated on the Florida reef track and the importance of the coral we take are of," Zimmerman said.
This coral will also eventually be returned to the ocean. The question is when.
Not only are these animals dealing with rapidly spreading disease, but last year, record ocean warming off the Florida Keys destroyed coral in shallow waters.
Andy Stamper, a Disney Conservation Science Manager and veterinarian said, “bleaching events have happened throughout history with the corals. But they've coming more and more common and more and more severe. Unfortunately, last year's event was just astronomically a lot warmer than previously. And unfortunately, the corals that had survived pleat previous bleaching events, a lot of them have come to this amount of heat.”
That's why having a coral nursery like this is more important than ever. If they can successfully spawn a genetic variety of coral, it can hopefully thrive in the harsh ocean environment.
“The name of the game is genes and that we need to have animals that have genes that make them resistant to these different pressures such as really, really warm water or disease,” Stamper said.