WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en-US

00:00:02.400 --> 00:00:06.880
I'm Lonny Anderson. I'm with the Florida&nbsp;
Keys National Marine Sanctuary. I'm part&nbsp;&nbsp;

00:00:06.880 --> 00:00:12.320
of the damage assessment team. We typically&nbsp;
go out when a vessel runs aground and assess&nbsp;&nbsp;

00:00:12.960 --> 00:00:16.400
the damage to the reef or seagrass&nbsp;
beds, whatever the case may be.&nbsp;&nbsp;

00:00:17.680 --> 00:00:23.360
Today we ended up going to Looe Key, and that's&nbsp;
one of our more popular reefs off of Big Pine&nbsp;&nbsp;

00:00:23.360 --> 00:00:28.320
area. And we got a report that a sailboat&nbsp;
ran aground there and we did a biological&nbsp;&nbsp;

00:00:28.320 --> 00:00:33.360
assessment on the reef. We did not find a whole&nbsp;
lot of damage, thank heavens for that, but we&nbsp;&nbsp;

00:00:33.360 --> 00:00:39.120
spent most of the morning just looking around and&nbsp;
assessing what damage this vessel could have done.

00:00:41.600 --> 00:00:46.880
I’m measuring, you know, basically the impact.&nbsp;
We want to obviously measure any coral that gets&nbsp;&nbsp;

00:00:46.880 --> 00:00:51.840
damaged, but in this particular instance&nbsp;
some of the we call “framework”, which is&nbsp;&nbsp;

00:00:51.840 --> 00:00:57.120
where the coral attaches to on the reef. Some of&nbsp;
that got damaged so I was measuring that. And,&nbsp;&nbsp;

00:00:57.120 --> 00:01:00.240
you know, what I'll do is when&nbsp;
I get back in the office I’ll&nbsp;&nbsp;

00:01:00.240 --> 00:01:04.960
add up all the measurements and and we'll&nbsp;
write a report saying exactly what was damaged.

00:01:08.240 --> 00:01:12.320
You know the Florida Keys National&nbsp;
Marine Sanctuary is here to protect the&nbsp;&nbsp;

00:01:13.040 --> 00:01:17.280
environment and resources here, and the&nbsp;
coral reef is one of those resources.

00:01:19.600 --> 00:01:23.040
It's clear that the the reefs&nbsp;
have degraded over time,&nbsp;&nbsp;

00:01:23.040 --> 00:01:25.840
especially just since I've&nbsp;
been here in the past 30 years.

00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:34.800
But the good news is that NOAA’s newest&nbsp;
initiative, Mission Iconic Reefs has begun&nbsp;&nbsp;

00:01:34.800 --> 00:01:42.800
and taken off. And what that entails is a bunch&nbsp;
of partners getting together and trying to restore&nbsp;&nbsp;

00:01:43.440 --> 00:01:45.520
seven iconic reefs here in the Keys.

00:01:47.600 --> 00:01:53.840
That's just amazing and the success so&nbsp;
far looks promising, so I'm hopeful.

00:01:56.880 --> 00:02:02.080
It's difficult to watch the reef degrade,&nbsp;
but it makes me happy to go out and see&nbsp;&nbsp;

00:02:02.080 --> 00:02:06.960
the new living coral that these&nbsp;
practitioners are putting out there. And&nbsp;&nbsp;

00:02:07.920 --> 00:02:16.091
they're growing, they're being successful&nbsp;
at it and, you know, I hope for the best.