Discovering a secret garden:
I bet most people reading this article have never heard of the Flower Garden Banks coral reef. When I told people where I was going this week, most had no idea there is a beautiful and healthy reef 100 miles offshore from the southeast Texas coast. What is even more surprising is the Flower Gardens is one of the healthiest coral reefs in the world. There are a few reasons for this. First, it’s remote. This is not an easy place to get to. Its isolation makes this an untouched underwater paradise. Second, its distance from land means it isn’t affected by pollution runoff from land. Last, the reef is deep. The coral from our three locations of the West Bank, East Bank and Stetson Bank were 60 to 100 feet deep. This depth keeps ocean temperatures a little lower compared to coral that is closer to the surface.
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The work to study and conserve the reef:
What was incredible for me to see was how Moody Gardens gathered a team of scientists from around the United States to focus their resources on this reef. Because of rising ocean temperatures, the Flower Gardens is stressed. But it’s not as bad as other coral reefs around the Earth. The discoveries scientists are making here can potentially help other reefs around the globe.
What was accomplished this week:
I had the fun job of following around an incredible group of scientists and divers and telling their story. In our one-hour documentary you’ll see the full stories of:
1. Continuous monitoring stations - Underwater temperatures have been recorded in same location on the reef since 1992.
2. Repetitive photo stations - Pictures are taken twice a year in the exact same spot looking for growth, health or decline.
3. Fish monitoring - Tagging invasive lionfish to track their movements in the reef. This monitoring has also picked up great white sharks in the Gulf of Mexico.
4. Lionfish study and removal - Lionfish have the potential to wipe out certain fish populations if their numbers continue to grow.
5. Buoy installation and repair - Boats are not allowed to drop anchor in a marine sanctuary. Anchors will damage the reef below. Boats tie themselves to buoys so they can remain in place.
6. Water quality monitoring
My favorite discovery - coral core:
When a buoy is made, a coral core needs to be removed so the buoy line can be anchored to the ground. The core is not thrown away. Different scientific groups take these cores and study them. The cores are like tree rings. It will tell you how old and how healthy the coral is. But there’s more. The rings will show years with higher gas prices and lower prices. It also shows the year the atomic bomb went off. There are cores that go back to the 1600s. These are currently being studied.
The Flower Garden Banks were designated as our 10th National Marine Sanctuary on January 17, 1992, by President George H.W. Bush. It is one of 15 National Marine Sanctuaries and the only one located in the Gulf of Mexico.
Our one-hour special on the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary will air at a later date. We’ll keep you posted.