Obituary Aside, The Great Barrier Reef Is In Danger But Not Dead
The latest obituary for the seeming death of the Great Barrier Reef by Outside Online's Rowan Jacobsen is inaccurate. Its viral status is much to the chagrin of actual scientists who claim that while endangered and in trouble, the iconic largest living thing on earth is not wholly dead. This very much goes to show that all viral news, by its very nature, must really be taken with a grain of salt.
The Huffington Post shares comments from the chief of the Coral Reef Ecosystem at NOAA, Russell Brainard. While great in that the news is making more people aware, the actual content of the news makes people give up instead of doing more to protect such sites around the world. Still, the chief comments that, "we're very far from an obituary."
Kim Cobb told LA Times that "It's not too late for the barrier reef..." Coming from Georgia Tech's School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Cobb continues that not a lot of people truly know about coral resilience.
As any living thing, there is a resilience to be seen in the organisms that make up the reef. Brainard backs this thought up and tells Huffington Post that, "These natural systems do have some ability to be resilient and bounce back."
However, the recent climate changes and El Nino do take their toll on the corals in the form of bleachings, an event wherein the coral shakes off its algae. This is done because at such temperatures, the algae itself becomes destructive to the coral.
That said, bleached corals aren't dead corals. Think of them as simply naked. However, the alarming thing is that if the temperature doesn't change back to normal quickly enough, the corals won't be able to feed and they starve, seeing as they rely on the algae for their nutrition.
Cobb, though, is hopeful, citing an event in the Pacific Ocean where even though 85% of the corals they were observing died out they still saw untouched and healthy corals that survived.
