STUART, Fla. — Dozens of community members gathered at the Blake Library in Martin County after a federally appointed council voted to roll back longstanding protections for the Oculina Bank — a rare deep-water coral reef found nowhere else on Earth.
Located just off the coast of Fort Pierce, the reef is hidden hundreds of feet below the surface, and unlike most coral that needs shallow sunlight to survive, the Oculina Bank thrives in deep, dark waters.
WATCH WPTV'S COVERAGE BELOW:
The reef is also home to more than 2,000 marine species.
"Very concerned about an ecosystem point of view, where your fish don't exist in a vacuum, they need a habitat, they need food," said Dr. Grant Gilmore, a scientist who previously dived the rare reef. "The coral reef was giving them habitat and food. You take that away, you don't have the fish."
For months, WPTV has been reporting on two proposals that would reopen parts of the reef to shrimp trawling — even though scientists say trawling destroyed as much as 90% of the reef before federal protections were put in place decades ago.
"They grow very, very slowly, and they've been there for a long time," said Mark Perry, Executive Director of the Florida Oceanographic Society.
Perry and Gilmore were two scientists who urged the public to help save the reef at the gathering.
"Corals are in trouble worldwide. We shouldn't be destroying anymore," Gilmore said.
Despite calls from scientists and activists to reject the proposal, in January, the federally-appointed South Atlantic Marine Fishery Council voted to reopen more than 24 square nautical miles of the reef — an area larger than the island of Manhattan to shrimp trawling — despite tens of thousands of petition signatures opposing the move.
"I was just devastated," Perry said. "Here's the same council that years ago, decades ago, approved protecting it, and that they now want to amend that protection and open it up to this destructive fishing effort."
Activists say the fight is not over.
"All of our voices saying don't approve these amendments. We've got to protect these reefs," Perry said.
"We're hoping that people will write letters to their congressman and to those who might be able to influence the decisions on what to do in saving the coral, which is, we want that coral to be protected," added Gilmore.
The proposal is now with NOAA, who will make the final decision on the proposal. The agency is expected to release draft rules within the coming months, giving the public one more opportunity to weigh in before officials decide whether to move forward.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.