Coral Bleaching

Left to nature, coral’s mating prospects are somewhat restricted by their inability to walk, fly or swipe Tinder to find a mate.

"By freezing these larvae, they can be held for literally hundreds of years," said Keri O'Neil with the Florida Aquarium.

North America’s only barrier reef is withering from heat and disease. Can efforts to preserve and propagate the corals at land-based facilities save them?

NOAA awarded South Florida scientists up to $16 million to try to breed and replant about 100,000 coral on ailing reefs using survivors of last summer's heat wave. Researchers say climate change is the biggest threat to coral’s survival because it’s simply making water too hot too fast.

Scientists say temperatures that have gone "crazy haywire" hot, especially in the Atlantic, are close to making the current global coral bleaching event the worst in history. It's so bad that scientists are hoping for a few hurricanes to cool things off.

With rising water temperatures threatening Florida’s coral reefs, scientists have worked to relocate the animals in order to save them. But one rescue operation run in part by Disney and Sea World in Orlando has been doing this for years - even before the latest bout of extreme heat.

Climate change is heating oceans faster than the world's coral reefs can handle. So scientists are breeding corals that can withstand hotter temperatures – but only to a point.

The first survey of Florida’s reefs after an ‘apocalyptic’ marine heat wave offers a bleak picture of the future of the state’s renowned corals — and the restoration efforts to save them.

Scientists are returning rescued coral into the Florida Keys Reef Tract. Earlier this summer, exceedingly warm water temperatures put many coral species in jeopardy.

Iconic elkhorn and staghorn corals took the heaviest losses, and researchers say they are at risk of becoming “functionally extinct” in the Florida Reef.

Experts say they are observing “thousands upon thousands” of miles of reefs undergoing bleaching due to heat stress caused by record high ocean temperatures.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists have warned conditions around reefs are far worse than in past bleachings, due to the warming of the oceans. Severe bleaching conditions are expected to hit the entire Caribbean by next month.