CHAMPIONS FOR CONSERVATION

Our commitment to preserving and protecting wildlife and wild places through conservation has been a core focus since the founding of The Florida Aquarium.

In order to make the most significant impact on the health of our environment, we strategically select conservation initiatives that amplify our expertise, engage the entire staff, leverage our partnerships and maximize our ability to advance our four Conservation Priorities: Safeguarding Imperiled Wildlife, Generating Healthy Habitats, Advancing Sustainable Business Operations and Reduction of Single-Use Plastic Consumption and Pollution.

Government affairs were also a focal point, with Conservation staff attending two congressional events on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. and lending our signature and support to 16 conservation-related policy letters.

Sexual Reproduction of Corals

Florida’s Coral Reef is dying off at an alarming rate due to a wide range of threats: increased water temperature and acidification from climate change, disease such as Stony Coral Tissue Loss, as well as pollution, overfishing, invasive species and water quality degradation.

As the nation’s largest coral reproduction facility, we have a direct and significant impact on reef restoration efforts. We acquired 46 new coral broodstock to help bolster our existing reproduction efforts. Scientists at The Florida Aquarium have now spawned 13 coral species in our labs, providing partners with over 2 million genetically diverse coral larvae and 3,500 corals in a unified restoration effort. We have settled over 100,000 corals in-house and outplanted over 4,500 corals onto the reef.

Sexual Reproduction of Sea Urchins

In a significant achievement for reef restoration, researchers at The Florida Aquarium, University of Florida and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission successfully reared and released nearly 200 long-spined sea urchins (Diadema antillarum) onto test reefs in the Florida Keys in December 2021. This is the first time urchins reared at The Florida Aquarium were released back into the wild! These urchins provide a vital service to marine life by feeding on fleshy algae, whose growth is fueled by pollution and whose proliferation can suffocate healthy coral reefs.

Considered one of the largest restocking efforts in the last 20 years, one of the goals of this project is to learn more about how to successfully transport, outplant and monitor transplanted sea urchins.

Patrick’s Parrotfish Protectors

Using simple bamboo barbecue skewers affixed to ceramic tiles, long-time Aquarium volunteer and former teacher Patrick McGirk developed a coral protection device to keep parrotfish from harming baby corals outplanted during reef restoration.

Known as “Patrick’s Parrotfish Protectors,” (PPP’s), they have proved easy to build on land and fast to deploy underwater and are remarkably effective at protecting juvenile coral from parrotfish, whose bite can scar or even kill young, vulnerable corals. The ultimate function of the PPP is to provide a harmless deterrent that discourages the fish from biting and will biodegrade over time.

Early results from studies in southeast Florida waters comparing the effectiveness of bamboo stake protection show that 58% of the corals outfitted with the pre-installed PPPs were completely healthy with no evidence of predation as compared to 13% of the unprotected coral and 18% of those with skewers installed at time of outplant. In addition, the amount of fragments that went missing was twice as high for corals with no protection (52%) compared to corals that had stakes installed (<30%).

Florida Reef Tract Rescue Program

At a reef site near Long Key, Aquarium divers established a grid for outplanting 560 juvenile corals including four different species: boulder brain (Colpophyllia natans), grooved brain (Diploria labyrinthiformis), symmetrical brain (Pseudodiploria strigosa) and spiny flower (Mussa angulosa). All were bred and reared at The Florida Aquarium from parent colonies collected as part of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums Florida Reef Tract Rescue Project.

The goal of this outplant is not only to support coral restoration efforts in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary but also to determine whether planting closely related coral offspring grown in a land-based, lab setting in close proximity to one another will be helpful or harmful to their survival and growth.