Reef Rescue: We found rare Staghorn coral where Palm Beach officials told feds it wou
From: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/co...tml?cxtype=rss
By SONJA ISGER and ANDREW MARRA
Palm Beach Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 01, 2009
RIVIERA BEACH — Excitement is brewing this morning about a patch of life no one knew was flourishing in waters a mile east of the island of Palm Beach.
Scuba divers for the non-profit group Palm Beach County Reef Rescue announced they have stumbled across a previously undiscovered field of rare Staghorn coral - a species on the Endangered Species List since 2006.
"We've found the largest field (of the coral) in the county," Reef Rescue's director Ed Tichenor said. "We're really surprised by this."
The find is significant, Reef Rescue contends, because it comes as Palm Beach town officials object to federal habitat protection for the area, where only small pockets of the endangered coral had been found previously. Town officials contend that this protected coral is uncommon in Palm Beach's waters.
Town officials did not return phone calls seeking comment this morning.
Reef Rescue and other environmentalists hope that the discovery of the coral will convince the National Marine Fisheries Service to extend its protective area north to Palm Beach.
The federal agency last year had designated about 1,300 square miles of ocean floor as critical habitat for the corals, ranging from the Florida Keys north to the Boynton Beach Inlet.
But Palm Beach County Reef Rescue has petitioned the government to extend it to the Lake Worth Inlet, including the town of Palm Beach's coastline.
Staghorn coral was declared a threatened species in 2006. It naturally is found throughout the Florida Keys, the Bahamas, the Caribbean islands and Venezuela.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration notes that disease and damage from humans and hurricanes has wiped out up to 98 percent of the Staghorn population since 1980.
At one time, scientists believed that the Staghorn population stretched no further north than Boca Raton's waters, but over the last several years it has been found throughout the waters off Palm Beach County, Tichenor said this morning.
The divers who found this field Saturday were looking for Staghorn coral but never thought it would be so abundant.
They estimate the field is between 100 and 300 feet long.
"I was expecting to see it but not as much," said Connie Gasque, a Palm Beach resident who led the dive group. "My reaction was 'Wow! Everywhere you looked, there it was."
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