Seven Caribbean coral species are under consideration for inclusion on the federal Endangered or Threatened Species List, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service announced Wednesday.
"The status review is an important step forward in protecting coral reefs, which scientists have warned may be the first worldwide ecosystem to collapse due to global warming," Miyoko Sakashita, oceans director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said. "Endangered Species Act protection can provide a safety net for corals on the brink of extinction."
Currently, only staghorn and elkhorn corals are listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act.
The seven Caribbean corals are Agaricia lamarcki, commonly called lamarck’s sheet coral; Montastraea annularis or boulder star coral; Montastraea faveolata or mountainous star coral; Montastraea franksi; Dendrogyra cylindrus or pillar coral; Dichocoenia stokesii or elliptical star coral; and Mycetiphyllia ferox or rough cactus coral.
"They’re all in dire straits, especially the Montastraeas. They have been especially hard hit by the diseases that followed the bleaching," Rafe Boulon, chief of resource management at V.I. National Park, said.
He was referring to the 2005 bleaching event that left the corals vulnerable to disease.
The Montastraea corals make up about 50 to 60 percent of the corals lost over the past several years, Boulon said.
The Montastraeas and the other corals are the reef builders.
While the center asked NOAA review another Caribbean coral—Oculina varicosa, also called large ivory coral—the agency found the center’s petition did not contain information to indicate that it may be threatened or endangered throughout its range.
The seven are among the 82 corals in the Caribbean and Pacific Oceans that the center pushed to have included as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
Once a species is listed as endangered, it is illegal to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, collect, or even attempt to do these things. If a species is listed as threatened, NOAA would issue regulations needed to conserve the species.
The center said that the habitat of these coral species in the Caribbean and Indo-Pacific region is threatened by rising seawater temperatures, increasing ocean acidification, intensifying storms, changes in precipitation, and sea-level rise—all linked to human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.
According to a press release from the center, when corals are stressed by extreme ocean temperatures, they are vulnerable to bleaching and death. Mass bleaching events have become much more frequent and severe as ocean temperatures have risen in recent decades, and scientists predict that most of the world’s corals will be subjected to mass bleaching events at deadly frequencies within 20 years on the world’s current emissions path.
Additionally, the center indicated that ocean acidification, caused by the ocean’s absorption of carbon dioxide, impairs the ability of corals to grow and build their protective skeletons. Therefore, global warming and ocean acidification are an overriding threat to coral reefs that have already experienced population declines from threats such as destructive fishing, agriculture runoff, pollution, abrasion, predation, and disease.
According to the center, these threats are made worse by local activities, such as ship traffic, dredging, coastal development, pollution, and agricultural and land use practices that increase sediment and nutrient runoff into the ocean. The petition says this combination of threats has already affected coral reef ecosystems on a global scale, and that these threats are becoming more severe and will greatly reduce the quantity and quality of coral reef ecosystems in the next few decades.
NOAA’s Fisheries Service is looking to the public for information on these corals to help it decide whether to include them on the list. The agency is interested in the species’ historical and current distribution and abundance, the short- and long-term effects of climate change on their condition, and the effects of other potential threats such as dredging and pollution.
The public has 60 days to comment with a decision expected by Oct. 20.
Comments, information or data, identified by RIN 0648-XT12, may be submitted in any of the following ways by April 11.
Electronically via the Federal eRulemaking Portal at http://www.regulations.gov or by mail to the Assistant Regional Administrator, Protected Resources Division, NOAA Fisheries Southeast Regional Office, 263 13th Avenue South, St. Petersburg, FL 33701.
Comments may also be faxed to 727-824-5309.
