Two years ago, Aliz¨¦e Zimmermann could hardly name more than a few species of coral. But as a native of Turks and Caicos and a scuba instructor with thousands of dives under her belt, she knew something was wrong when she saw some of the islands¡¯ oldest and largest corals disintegrating before her eyes.
¡°I saw a 20 foot tall pillar coral, probably two-, three-hundred years old, just peeling like if someone had poured acid over it,¡± she described later. She said her eyes welled with tears. ¡°It was apocalyptic.¡±
She began taking pictures of the white lesions that appeared to be eating away the corals¡¯ flesh and sent the photos to experts. Their diagnosis: stony coral tissue loss disease, which kills at least two-thirds of its hosts within months, if not weeks. First detected off the coast of Florida in 2014, it¡¯s since ravaged more than 30 hard coral species in at least 17 countries and territories in the Caribbean. In South Caicos, researchers from the School for Field Studies have reported a 62% loss of live hard coral coverage at three long-term research sites since the disease was first detected there in 2019.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.