It's late afternoon when the M/V Liberty 

 Star steams out of Port Canaveral, Fla. — past 

 charter boats in from a day of Gulf Stream 

 fishing, and on past commercial fishing vessels 

 draped with nets still wet from hoisting the 

 catch-of-the-day. 



The determined pace means Liberty Star 



— a NASA space-shuttle support ship — will 

 reach its destination 30 miles offshore well 

 before the sun slips below the horizon. 



Topside, Andy Shepard 

 thinks out loud. "There's plenty 

 of daylight for a launch." 



But this launch won't 

 generate a deep-space probe. 



On the contrary. His crew 

 will launch an array of high-tech 

 instruments to explore the deep- 

 ocean realm of the Oculina Banks 



— the only known deepwater reef 

 in the world formed by Oculina 

 varicosa, or Ivory Tree coral. 

 This pure-white oddity grows 

 in mounds and pinnacles along 

 the edge of Florida's continental 

 shelf, below the Gulf Stream 

 Florida Current at depths of 200 

 to 300 feet. 



Shepard, who is coordinating 

 the 10-day scientific mission, is 

 director of a National Undersea Research Center 

 based at the University of North Carolina at 

 Wilmington and funded by the National Oceanic 

 and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). 



He has assembled an interdisciplinary 

 team of researchers, technicians, students and 

 observers from a number of organizations. 

 They will help document the status of the coral 

 habitat and fish populations in the 300-square- 

 mile Oculina Habitat Area of Particular Concern 

 (OHAPC). A 92-square-mile segment of the 

 offshore formation first became a Marine 

 Protected Area (MPA) nearly 20 years ago. 



Scientists fear that much of the unique 

 coral reef ecosystem continues to be reduced to 

 rubble, mainly from bottom-fishing activities. 



The 2003 Oculina expedition is the latest 

 in a series — largely sponsored by NOAA 

 Fisheries — designed to produce scientific data 

 to support sound habitat protection and fisheries 

 management decisions. 



Ocean research is costly, and the NASA 



partnership stretches limited research dollars. 

 NASA provides a state-of-the-art ship as a 

 platform for operations at sea, as well as a highly 

 trained crew to launch and maneuver undersea 

 research technologies. NOAA's Remotely 

 Operated Vehicle (ROV) and NASA's Passive 

 Acoustic Monitoring System (PAMS) will 

 enable researchers to "see and hear" ocean floor 

 activities. 



ABOVE: A stand of Oculina varicosa coral is wrapped in long-line, 

 cable, nets and trawls 'seen ' on the reef by the ROV testify to illegal 



fishing activities. Photo courtesy of NOAA/NURC 



Ongoing quest 



Much of what already is known about 

 Oculina Banks is the result of decades of 

 research by John Reed, chief scientist on the 

 mission and at Harbor Branch Oceanographic 

 Institution (HBOI) in Fort Pierce, Fla. In 1975, 

 scientists there discovered the rare coral reefs. 



Soon after, Reed began studying Oculina 

 Banks. He described live coral thickets, mounds 

 and pinnacles up to 30 meters high and teeming 

 with life. Reed recorded a healthy ecosystem 

 supporting 250 species of mollusks, 50 species 

 of crabs and shrimp, and some 70 species of fish 



— including various grouper, snapper, black 

 drum, porgies, sea bass, amberjack, angelfish, 

 sharks, rays and small reef fish. 



Continuing studies demonstrate steady 

 declines in both live coral and fish populations 



— despite having federal protection since 1984. 

 That's when NOAA Fisheries' South 



Atlantic Fisheries Management Council 

 designated a 92-square-mile area as the OHAPC 



— an MPA classification that called for close 

 monitoring and banned the use of bottom- 

 tending gear such as trawls, dredges and fish 

 traps. 



Subsequent research by HBOI's Grant 

 Gilmore and Florida State University's Chris 

 Koenig showed dramatic loss of fish 

 populations, primarily grouper and snapper. 



So, in 1994 the council classified the area 

 as the Experimental Oculina Research Reserve 

 for a 10-year period to protect 

 the coral habitat and dwindling 

 snapper and grouper populations 

 in the reserve. 



Then, in 2000 the council 

 expanded the OHAPC to 

 encompass 300-square miles — 

 about 60 nautical miles long 

 and 5 nautical miles wide — 

 stretching from Cape Canaveral 

 to Fort Pierce. 



The moratorium on hook- 

 and-line bottom fishing for all 

 snapper and grouper species 

 applies only to the 92-square- 

 mile experimental research 

 reserve. The larger area remains 

 off-limits to bottom trawls, 

 dredges, fish traps and anchoring 

 — but commercial and 

 recreational fishers may surface troll for pelagic 

 fish, such as wahoo, tuna, dolphin and sailfish. 



The goal is to protect the rare coral and fish 

 habitat, and assist in the management of 

 important commercial and recreational fisheries. 



Life as o coral 



Corals are primitive animals made up of 

 colonies of polyps. Unlike their shallow-water 

 reef cousins, the deep-water species, such as 

 Oculina varicosa, lack symbiotic algae, or 

 zooxanthellae, to supply nourishment and color. 

 Instead, tentacles that encircle their miniscule, 

 soft bodies capture plankton carried by deep- 

 flowing currents for food and energy. 



The Oculina varicosa corals secrete 

 limestone, expanding their branch-like skeletons 

 as they grow upward, ever-so-slowly, at a rate of 

 about one-half inch per year, building the reef as 

 they go. A five-foot coral "tree" may be a 

 century old. 



Continued 



Pieces of 

 bottom- 



COASTWATCH 17 



