Corals are ancient animals,they’ve been forming for over the last 25 million years. Corals are the largest bunch of organisms with phylum cnidaria (a space where there are over 11,000 species) There are over 6,000 known species including sea fans, sea pansies and anemones. Coral reefs are some of the diverse ecosystems in the world, but lately they have been dying.
Humans are one of the main sources for reefs being harmed. Humans cause pollution by overfish, fishers try to catch fish by using dynamite or cyanide. They collect live corals for some aquarium markets and a warming climate is one of the many ways coral reefs get damaged around the entire world.
One of the more serious problems is pollution. With the pollution there has been algae that covers the coral reefs causing them to not be able to be seen or breathe.The coral reefs can also be affected by leaking fuels like oil. Oil doesn’t always seem to affect the corals since the oil stays up on the surface of the water most times.
Various coral reefs are being destroyed due to placement in aquariums. When people dump cyanide to catch fish it degrades the reef. There are more than 40 countries that have been affected by blast fishing. Deep water trawling can also be one of the ways the reefs get hurt. It’s when people get a huge net to try and catch the fish and there’s these heavy bags that land on the bottom of the ocean floor and sometimes the reef gets crushed for them, they also get caught up in the net and get torn away from the other reefs.
When gasses or heat and energy get out it causes the temperature to rise in the ocean. It leads to the coral reefs being bleached and dying.
We need to start being more aware of the damage we’re doing to the ocean and living creatures there. It is a very sad thing to see the reefs being bleached from their beautiful unique colors to being dead and plain white. Some ways we can help are recycling and throwing trash away properly, using environmentally friendly transportation, saving energy at home, and spread the word. If we do these things it won’t only help the coral reef but also every animal in the ocean. It would be something good to do.