The news report said that off Jacksonville’s coast, deep in the dark ocean, scientists are charting seascapes of canyons and towering coral reefs that may be unique to the world. It is said that it may be the largest expanse of undamaged deep-water corals on earth. And it may soon acquire government protection.
A federal agency released a draft plan last month to restrict ocean-bottom fishing in much of the coral habitat. It is informed that the coral reefs stretch from the Carolinas to South Florida and are havens for commercially important deep-sea fish, and their future is bound up with that of fishing, regulators argue.
Duane Harris, chairman of the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council, an agency that regulates commercial fishing off the Southeast coast, explained that some reefs are thousands of years old. He added that it’s a resource that is certainly worth protecting. Clustered around some corals are sharks and deep-sea varieties of snapper and grouper that feed and breed scores of miles away from shore.
Fishermen who work near the reefs have discussed restrictions with regulators for about five years. William Whipple, a Fort Lauderdale fisherman, said that it’s been very reasonable. They’ve spent literally hundreds of hours with them. Much of the coral off Jacksonville is a variety called Lophelia, which grows in pure white, branching shapes resembling trees. Explorations off Jacksonville also discovered a previously unknown coral, dubbed Thourella bipinnata, and another species previously found only in the Caribbean.
