video
Inspect nursery area after Hurricane Georges.
The entire west end of Western Sambo reef
was rearrange by the force of Hurricane Georges. All of
the rosettes had shifted, a few of them had been swept thirty
yards from their original location. Pieces of bottom were torn
away and peeled back in this area of the nursery that created
a scene resembling the aftermath of an explosion. The severity
of the damage to Elkhorn coral is of a magnitude beyond our ability
to determine. All fifteen rosettes were accounted for and recovered
except for one that was buried beneath tons of rubble (it later
surfaced after Tropical Storm Mitch). One rosette survived intact,
a bit stressed and it looked as though it had been sand blasted,
but it survived. A total of nine pieces of coral attached to the
rosettes survived (nine out of forty-nine), roughly an 80% loss.
Video
Inspect nursery with plans
to rebuild.
A video transect was carried out in the
nursery area and in the palmata zone near the Jacqueline L grounding
site. Fifteen new cement pads were shuttled to the reef and dropped
near the nursery area. It was assumed that at least fifty rosettes
would be needed to stabilize the broken coral in the immediate
area of the nursery. Thirteen of the original pads were moved
to the staging area ,making twenty-eight pads available for coral
transplant. At this point the entire FKNMS staff that we had been
communicating with was encouraging us to continue our efforts.
We were reminded that what work we were doing could never measure
up to the magnitude of damage sustained to Elkhorn coral Keys
wide, yet we were encouraged to make the effort.
35mm slides
Rebuild the fifteen rosettes.
A new wrinkle in the fabric put a stop to the expansion of the nursery project when it was announced by the FKNMS Superintendent that Reef Relief was only permitted to replace the original fifteen rosettes. We decided to reuse the recovered rosette pads. The new pads, that had been transported to the site, would be used to rest the new recovered coral fragments on. In one day a team of eight volunteers rebuilt the nursery. There were four large boulders that protruded out of the sea floor in the staging area directly under mooring buoy #16, so the ‘leftover’ Elkhorn and Staghorn coral fragments, that were recovered but did not fit on the rosettes, were cemented directly to these large ‘dead heads’. This method of stabilizing the fragments proved to be a natural. The benefits to the coral are #1. The corals were attached to original substrate. #2 They were elevated above the shifting rubble and #3 they were closer to the sunlight. A second wrinkle in the fabric surfaced when we were told by the FKNMS Superintendent that we were not supposed to be ’manipulating nature’ and ordered to cease all coral stabilization efforts that required the use of hydraulic cement. Thirteen of the new cement pads were removed from the staging area and returned to shore.
© 2001 Reef Relief--All
Rights Reserved.
