Reefs need protection

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Scientist digs deep to learn ocean's secrets

Over the past decade, Steve Ross has spent many of his days searching for undiscovered truths, kept hidden for years by deep, cold waters.

Those truths lie in massive, aged coral reefs, buried off the coasts of the Carolinas, Georgia and eastern Florida. The deepwater coral reefs, and the sea life in them, could hold cures to cancer and historical information on environmental changes over thousands of years, say scholars familiar with Ross' work.

Scientists have studied and documented the value of protecting coral ecosystems near the shore for years. But deep-sea coral has remained uncharted territory. Ross, a UNC Wilmington marine scientist, has led an effort to locate and study deep-sea coral ecosystems off the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. Next month, he will make his fourth trip out into the Atlantic Ocean to study what may be the largest contiguous distribution of deepwater corals in the world.

Undersea wonders put on a (final?) show

You expect to see people wipe their eyes at certain kinds of movies. A movie about fish isn't one of them.

"Coral Reef Adventure," released in 2003, is among the more recent offerings from IMAX producer MacGillivray Freeman Films. This time, the giant-format -- 10 times the size of the 35 mm film used to shoot most movies, shown on a screen eight stories high -- goes down under, both geographically and geopolitically -- to explore the world's coral reefs. Specifically, their decline worldwide.

The noted husband and wife underwater film team of Howard and Michele Hall spend 10 months exploring three reefs in the South Pacific: Australia's Great Barrier Reef and reefs off Fiji and French Polynesia. They're drawn by a ticking clock: Reports from the United Nations and environmental concerns say the world has lost up to 10 percent of its reefs in the past four years and that they could vanish completely in the next 40. The culprits: ocean warming, over-fishing and an increase in light-blocking silt deposited

Migrants' ship breaks apart

Rescuers searched by sea and air Tuesday for nearly 70 Haitians after an overloaded sailboat ran aground and capsized in reef-studded waters off the Turks and Caicos Islands, killing at least 15 migrants fleeing the poverty of their homeland.

The boat was carrying an estimated 200 people when it struck a coral reef and broke apart in rough seas near West Caicos, part of an archipelago that has proven to be deadly for Haitians in rickety vessels.

Officials from the United States and the Turks and Caicos said 15 died and more than 100 were rescued, including some who were clinging for their lives to the jagged reefs or who swam two miles to shore.

Stolen trailer held oyster shell cache

Someone stole a trailer full of spent oyster shells from behind Squid's seafood restaurant, and the Coastal Conservation Association wants it back.

It's no mere pile of trash but a life raft for North Carolina fisheries.

CCA member and UNC-Chapel Hill microbiologist Chris Elkins bought the trailer two years ago and had a lid installed to keep critters out and the stench in.

An opening for oysters in N.C.

Pamlico Sound must have been an astonishing place in the 18th and 19th centuries. Old salts told tales of oyster reefs so teeming with aquatic life that they were a menace to navigation.

Oyster dredgers working under sail and later steam hauled in millions of bushels of the salty bivalves each year. Some were consumed on the spot; some were packed off to restaurants in the big cities. Others were destined for the canning trade.

It wasn't just that oysters were good to eat. They were also good for the water quality. Oysters cleanse the water around them; there once were enough of them in Chesapeake Bay to filter its entire volume of water every few days.