{"id":12319,"date":"2020-10-29T19:02:33","date_gmt":"2020-10-29T19:02:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=12319"},"modified":"2020-10-29T19:02:34","modified_gmt":"2020-10-29T19:02:34","slug":"fragile-coral-hotspots-in-gulf-win-federal-protection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=12319","title":{"rendered":"Fragile coral hotspots in Gulf win federal protection"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Some deep-sea corals can grow hundreds of feet tall, while others live for thousands of years.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0Photo: noaa.gov<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By ROZ BROWN<\/strong>
Texas News Service<\/p>\n\n\n\n

HOUSTON \u2014 Ancient coral hotspots in the Gulf of Mexico will be protected from damaging fishing gear, in a plan approved by federal officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The use of trawls, traps, anchors and longlines will be prohibited in most of the 21 protected areas. According to Holly Binns, director of The Pew Charitable Trusts\u2019<\/a> marine life program, the proactive change will preserve ecosystems that provide food, shelter and breeding grounds for ocean life, ranging from sharks and crabs to fish species such as snapper and grouper. Binns said the coral hotspots are fragile, slow growing and also critical to long-term survival of other species. Once they\u2019re damaged, however, they can take centuries to recover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis plan would identify about two dozen of these sites,\u201d she said, \u201cand in most of them prohibit the use of this damaging fishing gear in order to protect these very special coral hotspots.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Federal approval of the plan creates 21 protected areas off the coasts of Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An extra benefit of the restoration plan is the development of better maps to locate coral reefs and other ecosystems. Tom Frazer, who chairs the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council<\/a>, said that\u2019s important, because there\u2019s a lot that\u2019s unknown about the deepest parts of the ocean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese deep-sea coral habits, they\u2019re poorly understood, but we do know that they\u2019re very long-lived, they do provide ecological benefits,\u201d he said, \u201cand we want to make sure that they continue well into the future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frazer said coral ecosystems also are natural disease fighters. Some hold properties that are producing treatments for medical conditions, including cancer. The plan, approved by the U.S. Department of Commerce, designates 21 sites totaling 484 square miles as Habitat Areas of Particular Concern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Support for this reporting was provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By ROZ BROWNTexas News Service HOUSTON \u2014 Ancient coral hotspots in the Gulf of Mexico will be protected from damaging fishing gear, in a plan approved by federal officials. The use of trawls, traps, anchors and longlines will be prohibited in most of the 21 protected areas. According to Holly Binns, director of The Pew Charitable […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":12317,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12319"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12320,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12319\/revisions\/12320"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}