New Marine Life in Florida Keys

I found this article on NOAA's website and it was very encouraging to see that there is hope for our oceans!

Thanks to conservation efforts by federal, state, and local organizations, there is a resurgence of reef fish and corals in the Dry Tortugas National Park, located about 70 miles west of Key West, Fla.
In 2001, NOAA’s Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary implemented the Tortugas Ecological Reserve, consisting of 151 square nautical miles of protected marine habitat. To monitor the progress of this protected area, which had suffered from overfishing and other environmental changes, the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies funded a marine census to examine how the ecosystem was responding after seven years as a protected area.

“We are very encouraged to see that stocks have slowly begun to recuperate since implementing ‘no-take’ marine protected areas in the region,” said Jerry Ault, chief scientist on the project and a professor of marine biology and fisheries at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. “We are currently crunching the data collected to see what adjustments may need to be made to help guide future management decisions to address the issues of biodiversity protection, restoration of ecological integrity, and fishery management.”

As a result of this census, divers from six federal agencies and universities (NOAA, U-Miami Rosensteil School, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, National Park Service, Reef Education and Environmental Foundation, and the University of North Carolina at Wilmington) collected data showing increases in the numbers of snapper, grouper, and corals in the outermost Florida Keys — positive signs of recovery.
Toppled coral.

http://www.noaa.gov/features/monitoring_1008/marinelife.html