A nightmare is unfolding in the Great Barrier Reef

[Bruce Burnett]

I would love to say it is all caused by man because it would mean there might be a way to change it. The weather has always had patterns of change and some were major even without humans. Why is greenland covered in ice. Where are the glaciers that used to be in north America. Why is the axis of earth changing and at a faster rate than was believed. We are in an expanding universe where change is inevitable with or without humans. The human co2 foot print is small when you have a few large volcano eruptions in a year.

 

[chefjpaul]

I would love to say it is all caused by man because it would mean there might be a way to change it. The weather has always had patterns of change and some were major even without humans. Why is greenland covered in ice. Where are the glaciers that used to be in north America. Why is the axis of earth changing and at a faster rate than was believed. We are in an expanding universe where change is inevitable with or without humans. The human co2 foot print is small when you have a few large volcano eruptions in a year.

You have a very valid point, as the earth is still warming from the latest ice age.

But- we as a species are still causing irreversible damage to the planet, animal extinction and ourselves at a rapid pace than ever before, without remorse.

We need to be more conscientious of our environment for what we can do & control.

After andromeda it wont matter anyway, but we won't last that long.

 

[shred5]

I would love to say it is all caused by man because it would mean there might be a way to change it. The weather has always had patterns of change and some were major even without humans. Why is greenland covered in ice. Where are the glaciers that used to be in north America. Why is the axis of earth changing and at a faster rate than was believed. We are in an expanding universe where change is inevitable with or without humans. The human co2 foot print is small when you have a few large volcano eruptions in a year.

While That is true there is no way over 1 billion cars in world is not having some affect, It does not take a genius to know that.
Corals have adapted and can adapt but when it changes so fast they do not have the chance to adapt. The changing of the ph of the ocean is having a bad impact too. My point is yea global warming and cooling are normal but we are speeding it up and not giving the earth a chance to adapt.

 

[Live Water]

I have seen several articles on this lately in the great barrier reef. Also saw one one the Caribbean reefs. Like 90 percent of the Caribbean reefs are void of reef building corals. They were showing time lapsed pictures of reefs over like 50 years and you see them go from coral and fish to nothing but rubble maybe a stray gorgonia and sponge.

Problem is this is the beginning of the end for this hobby, this much bleaching and they will ban any collecting in those areas...


There is stuff we can do.. Stop supporting countries like China who pollute. They are polluting their lands so bad they can not even eat their own animals.

I believe it's the opposite, oceans becoming inhospitable will increase the need to save these animals in facilities where they can be reproduced until the ocean are fixed/recover, it's also a brick in the face of people who don't believe in global warming. It's becoming clearer every year that the only reason temperatures have remained moderate over the past fifteen years is because the oceans have been absorbing the abuse.

 

[Live Water]

They banish collection and let them all die out there instead of taking 20 of them and turning into 1000 to spread in labs around the world.....that would be disappointing but not unbelievable, Sad and bad situation all around.

 

[Squamosa]

I believe it's the opposite, oceans becoming inhospitable will increase the need to save these animals in facilities where they can be reproduced until the ocean are fixed/recover, it's also a brick in the face of people who don't believe in global warming. It's becoming clearer every year that the only reason temperatures have remained moderate over the past fifteen years is because the oceans have been absorbing the abuse.

I and others in the reefclub, hold fragments (actually colonies now) from mother colonies that were taken from the GBR originally.

Does anybody who purchases colonies know where they came from?

I would be more than happy to give frags back if it really became a disaster and we had to help, however romantic or naive that sounds.
This would probably be at the expense of their genetic diversity and the fitness of the animals might suffer anyway in the long term.

I will stir the pot here and say...

I do feel some guilt for just accepting these colonies that were wild caught, what do the major collectors here in Australia think, now that there are strong calls to declare the GBR as "in danger" and their livelihoods might be taken away.

Do we start to call ourselves ethical reefers now and only accept corals from sources that are many generations on from the mother colony?
Always question where your coral came from?

Lively debate is great
Cheers

 

[Squamosa]

taking 20

If only it was, the collection is in the Tonnes!

 

[Live Water]

If only it was, the collection is in the Tonnes!

I figured, I was referring to a Noah's Ark type of situation in cause everything gets wiped out, they do it for trees and plants/food..

 

[Scottsquatch]

Wow, I was already having a bad day and this just made it worse. It's bad enough to know our hobby is gonna take a hit, but think about it.... WE are gonna take a hit. We are killing our planet and by doing so we are killing ourselves. Make no mistake, our governments don't care because that would be bad for the economy. They give a lot of lip service to look good, but the government's of the world combined have collectively done almost nothing. A mere drop in the bucket really. I hate to be a pessimist, but by the time people wake up and smell the coffee it's gonna be way to late to put on the breaks.

Even my own wife thinks I'm silly for wanting to recycle, compost, and utilize solar power. I guess it's just too much of a hassle to be good stewards for our planet... I am so frustrated!

 

[Squamosa]

in cause everything gets wiped out, they do it for trees and plants/food

I humbly offer my little tank

 

[RoyalGrammaJohn]

I have seen several articles on this lately in the great barrier reef. Also saw one one the Caribbean reefs. Like 90 percent of the Caribbean reefs are void of reef building corals. They were showing time lapsed pictures of reefs over like 50 years and you see them go from coral and fish to nothing but rubble maybe a stray gorgonia and sponge.

Problem is this is the beginning of the end for this hobby, this much bleaching and they will ban any collecting in those areas...


There is stuff we can do.. Stop supporting countries like China who pollute. They are polluting their lands so bad they can not even eat their own animals.

Most corals everyone gets now a days are fragged and aquaculture. The hobby will and is moving in this direction even with fish. They just starting receiving captive bred yellow tangs in retail fish stores. But it needs to go a lot faster and based on a ton of articles I've read is the biggest threat is temperature increases obviously and pollution. Wild caught fish doesn't help the reefs either but it's climate change that's really doing a number on the reefs. Ridiculously sad.

 

[Squamosa]

corals everyone gets now a days

You're thinking local, the USA

That is not the case here in Australia where most coral (Acropora sp.) comes to us as colonies plucked straight from the GBR!

It was mainly the little reefing clubs that did the fragging and tank aquaculture, of course, now some of the larger commercial operators are providing frags but first these corals are taken as large colonies from the ocean and chopped up.

A large amount of colonies (mainly A. microclados-shortcake) are shipped to Japan on a weekly basis and Europe gets a fair whack of colonies too.

 

[NeptuneGarden]

Sad ? I guess ...... it's called nature ..... it's not a zero sum system.
Pollution ? Global warming .... oops sorry I mean climate change ?

Did no one actually read the artcl ? It clearly states the die off is due to the current el nino cycle ........ which just also happens to be bringing much needed rain to California's eco-system

This will change the reef "forever" ???
"Forever" isn't exactly a very scientific term for a marine biologist to use.

The reef will recover ........ eventually ...... just because humans are horribly impatient creatures doesn't mean the reef is.

Brings back memories of the famous Agent smith from Matrix saying:

"I’d like to share a revelation that I’ve had, during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you aren’t actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with its surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply, and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague..."

Very sad because its true. Sea around Asia is fishless "ocean desert"

I HATE hearing this same old tired monologue thrown around. Complete nonsense. EVERY organism on the planet behaves this way. Look at the mice plagues of Australia. Look at exploding deer populations. EVERY organism strives to multiply and consume as much as it can as fast as it can. If abundant food and shelter is available EVERY species on the planet explodes in size and numbers. This is natural.

 

[shred5]

Problem is you can not put your corals back in the ocean.
They have been mixed with other corals from other parts of the world and introduced to other pathogens.
You introduce one pathogen that those corals are not built up a immunity too and an already fragile system would crash.
That is thought to be what wiped out the Caribbean reefs it is thought they were introduced to some pathogen they were not used too.

Most corals everyone gets now a days are fragged and aquaculture. The hobby will and is moving in this direction even with fish. They just starting receiving captive bred yellow tangs in retail fish stores. But it needs to go a lot faster and based on a ton of articles I've read is the biggest threat is temperature increases obviously and pollution. Wild caught fish doesn't help the reefs either but it's climate change that's really doing a number on the reefs. Ridiculously sad.

Other than clownfish this hobby in its current form would not survive long without wild caught fish.. The price on fish would go through the roof. We all like corals but you need some movement. It would cripple the hobby right now. The people trying to get us banned in Hawaii will now have their weapon and that is where allot of our fish come from. Aqua-cultured saltwater fish just is not happening fast enough..

I think other areas not affected will use this to protect their reefs. It will give ammo to those trying to shut down our hobby. It will help the legislation that is there now pass. There is going to be a knee jerk reaction even without the actual facts.
It is really sad.

I have been in the hobby a while and have seen lots of areas close down. There have always been other areas to collect but we are running out of areas. This will put more pressure on those areas we still collect from.

I bet close to half our corals still come from the wild. Chop shops are still a major problem in the United states.

They banish collection and let them all die out there instead of taking 20 of them and turning into 1000 to spread in labs around the world.....that would be disappointing but not unbelievable, Sad and bad situation all around.

The problem this is such a wide area. Also if you read some of these articles this even is far more than just the great barrier reef it hit the whole area like Indonesia and all the way to Fiji. Some of those areas have been hit for years already.

A few corals need to reach maturity to actually do anything. If it was 20 percent kill of no big deal, 80 percent coverage could repair its self in a few years and some bleaching actually leads to new reef. 20 percent can not repopulate 80 percent fast enough. The fish population will be wiped out with no where to go.

Also I have been scuba diving molasses reef for most of my life and saw it die. They have been trying to replant it. I was just watching a video last week of them replanting it and they swam over a area they just replanted and it was already wiped out, new frags gone. Replanting is not working if you are just putting corals back where they will have the same thing happen again.


I just think this big of a event is going to have back lash and not just on our hobby.

They are finding more reefs farther north than ever but they are not moving fast enough at the current rate.

 

[Kaskade]

very sad news

 

[Scottsquatch]

Neptune garden, yes you are right about animal populations. They explode and shrink if somthing gets out of balance in an environmentally controlled effort to again find equilibrium. However, we do not have enough data collected over time to prove one way or another if this is a cyclical event or brought on by our impact on the Planet. Also, the oceans have been extremely stable a lot longer than man has been here and the reefs and aquatic life have evolved to live under these conditions. If the conditions change too rapidly, much of the life does die off. That's what has happened in the past on our planet during mass extinctions. They are natural too of course, but when it comes to climate change brought on by excess greenhouse gasses I can't help but feel we are probably at least partly to blame.

 

[DMan]

A neighbor tried to lecture me about how the aquarium hobby is killing the reefs. After the conversation he jumped in his Ford 350 4x4 and I asked him where he was off to. He had to go buy a carton of milk. Must be one heavy carton.

 

[DMan]

Neptune garden, yes you are right about animal populations. They explode and shrink if somthing gets out of balance in an environmentally controlled effort to again find equilibrium. However, we do not have enough data collected over time to prove one way or another if this is a cyclical event or brought on by our impact on the Planet. Also, the oceans have been extremely stable a lot longer than man has been here and the reefs and aquatic life have evolved to live under these conditions. If the conditions change too rapidly, much of the life does die off. That's what has happened in the past on our planet during mass extinctions. They are natural too of course, but when it comes to climate change brought on by excess greenhouse gasses I can't help but feel we are probably at least partly to blame.

Does it really matter whether its natural or our fault. Either way if we don't fix it or at least help it fix itself we are all screwed.

 

[1fishjones]

I don't want to make light of bad situation but... I'm a little older than most of you and distinctly remember this same group of government subsidized scientist saying only the most drastic of measures can save us from another ice age. They said ice would be covering the planet by the year 2000.

Take notice, this is why the new tag line is climate change.

http:/www.climatedepot.com/2014/09/07/global-warming-pause-extends-to-17-years-11-months/

It's all about global government controlling the masses.
They've actual gone as far as threatening arrest for climate change deniers.

Relax God has total control.

 

[Colin Chaplin]

Sorry but one of the biggest problem in the Oceans is plastic particles,that is affecting a lot of marine animals, that is not a natural occurrence that is human waste, anyone skimming the Oceans?.