Julie Cheon, Communications Manager for the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about the sanctuary.
The sanctuary has a new superintendent.
Cheon said, “We are super excited to welcome Edward Eddie Kertis. He is the new superintendent, and he really has a strong combination of leadership experience, environmental science, and a real connection to the Florida Keys community too. He spent more than a decade with the US Army Corps of Engineers, and while he was there, he led large-scale environmental infrastructure and natural resource programs. Being down here in the Keys, that’s very valuable experience where sanctuary management involves science, it involves policy, restoration, public use and a whole lot of coordination with some fantastic partners, and some of the things he already understands the sanctuary and the community. He has served on the sanctuary advisory council, and he’s familiar with the management plan, and he’s been engaged with many issues that matter here locally. He’s very out there in the community, so I think a lot of people will already be familiar with them, but in addition to that experience, he has a lot of hands-on marine experience. He’s worked as a charter boat captain, a dive master, and he understands the water not only from a management perspective, but a person who’s out there using the resource and enjoying the sanctuary, so we’re keeping him very busy right now. He’s meeting with staff and partners and community members, doing a lot of the onboarding things that are required of the role, but we’re really looking forward to this next chapter and to continue to build those strong partnerships across the Keys.”
The Sanctuary Advisory Council met yesterday in Marathon.
Cheon said, “The Sanctuary Advisory Council is actually very important for the public, and we often call it the SAC, Sanctuary Advisory Council, SAC, but it’s one of the most important ways the public can stay connected with what’s happening in the sanctuary, and a major reason for that is because it includes representatives from many different parts of the community. It includes members from the boating community, the conservation community, the diving, education outreach, fishing, tourism, research, local government, even submerged cultural resources, and the community at large are all represented, so it’s really an important conduit. That broad representation is really important, because we don’t manage the sanctuary in isolation. It is a living member of the community here, so it’s part of the economy and the environment of the Florida Keys.”
The meeting introduced the new superintendent and had a strong focus on science.
Cheon said, “We had Dr. Andy Bruckner. He’s with the sanctuary, and he gave an excellent presentation about what happened during the 2023 marine heat event and what we’re watching for here in 2026 and he talked about what the sanctuary and partners are doing here, that’s a big topic. There’s a lot of information. We had a presentation on Sargassum from Katharine Egan. She’s the Southeastern Caribbean regional coordinator for NOAA and Sargassum is something that many people in the Keys are noticing this time of year when it comes to shore. NOAA has actually a lot of resources to help communities better understand and track those events, and we have done some social media posts recently with those links in them. It gives you resources, it tells you what NOAA is doing, and there’s even a tool out there that they’ve recently upgraded a little bit that will give you the prediction for the Sargassum inundation in your area. The public comment is really important, so I just want to put that out there, that we really want people to come and comment, and I know a lot of people just can’t make the meetings, but you can reach out to us anytime, and you can also reach out to your SAC council members, I mean, they are parts of the community, so you can reach out to them as well.”
What else should people be watching for this year?
Cheon said, “One of the most important issues we’re watching right now, for a little background, and this is important for the story, is that the 2023 marine heat event was extremely intense for Florida’s coral reef. Water temperatures rose early, they stayed high for a long time, the conditions were dangerous, there was a lot of coral mortality. It was such a strong event that NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch program, it scales events, well they actually had to add new categories after the 2023 event. It was that strong and lasted that long. So, between the intensity and the heat stress, they just had to increase their scale, but what we’re looking for this year, we also have El Nino conditions this year, and while that can be a good thing in some respects, because it can reduce the threat of Atlantic hurricanes due to the wind shear, but it can also contribute to warmer ocean conditions. So, while some people hear reduced hurricane threat, we’re thinking about the coral perspective, and having to watch those temperatures very closely. We do have a little bit of good news right now, is that at this point in the season the water temperatures are not as hot as they were the same point of 2023 and that’s encouraging, but the lesson from 2023 is that conditions can change quickly and preparation matters. An amazing thing that happened in 2023 is that the sanctuary we work with partners who are amazing and do the bulk of the actual rescuing of the coral. It’s a big coordinated effort, and I want to give a shout out to the partners, but using those lessons learned from 2023.”
In 2023, 27,000 corals were rescued.
Cheon said, “When I say rescued, that means they were taken out of the water and placed in appropriate areas on land that have been set up sort of on-land nurseries for them, and so that was really pretty amazing. But this year the Department of Environmental Protection has provided extra funding to support additional space for emergency response capacity, because you have to have place to put these corals, and they also provide some additional funding for emergency response capacity, helping us to get the corals out of the water into these areas, so the practitioners are also using and testing several techniques to help reduce heat stress impacts, and that includes moving some corals to deeper water nursery areas. We’ve found that that’s been successful in certain areas, but also shading nursery corals, and the shading is pretty interesting. It’s not just the heat alone that determines the impact on corals, it’s the relationship between the heat and the light, so when you have that combination of high temperatures and intense light, the stress is more, and it does have more of an impact on corals in certain settings. So we actually have the University of Miami involved, and they have been developing an inflatable shade structure, and it’s being piloted down here in the Keys, over one of the nurseries we have down here, and if this works well, they’ll be looking to mass produce those next year to really help us really help with that. So, the big takeaway, I guess I’m going to say is that we’re not waiting. The sanctuary, NOAA, the coral practitioners are using what we learned from 2023 and preparing to monitor as effectively as we can. We’re just asking the public to do what you can, boat carefully, use mooring buoys, follow the regulations, because every bit helps.”
What about the restoration of long spine sea urchins?
Cheon said, “We just had an amazing relocation event. We had hundreds of diadema, the long spine urchins, and we relocated them from a rubble field that’s not very hospitable to them, it doesn’t have a lot of food for them, it doesn’t have a lot of hiding places for them, to a reef environment, and that’s really important because they are grazers, they help keep the algae in check, and by keeping the algae in check, it gives space for the coral to grow, and it was the largest relocation of diadema, 197 of them were relocated from the rubble field to the reef, the largest ever done in the Florida Keys.”
Sargassum will also be monitored.
Cheon said, “It’s critical habitat when it’s out on the water, but it’s not so much fun from a human perspective. When it ends up on land, there are great resources from NOAA. We’ve done some social media posts on this recently. We’ll be doing another one soon. The NOAA resources tell you what NOAA is doing about it, and it’s also a tool that predicts the level of inundation that you’re going to have in your area, and again, you can check out our social media posts, so it is ecologically important when it’s on the water, but it does have some negative aspects to it, when it’s on the land. Reach out if you have any questions. We’ll get you to the right resources.”
A tour group recently found mooring buoys in the water.
Cheon said, “It was Honest Eco Tours, and they are down in the Lower Keys. They are Blue Star certified. They found a mooring buoy that was adrift where it shouldn’t be. They picked it up, they cleaned it up, and they got it back to us, so we can reuse it and remark that and put it back, so somebody else can now use it, and not anchor in a sensitive habitat. Buoys are so important, so we just can’t thank Honest Eco Tours enough. And the additional Blue Star certified operators, we have dive Blue Star certified dive operators. We also have Blue Star certified fishing guides, and they are trained by the sanctuary, and they are going to give you an immersive experience, and really let you know what the sanctuary is about, and how to enjoy it.”
For more information, click here: https://floridakeys.noaa.gov