Wildlife

Florida’s devastating coral disease spreads

A devastating coral disease that started in the Miami area has spread to nearly all of the Florida reef tract and the infection known as stony coral tissue loss disease can now even be found as far away in the Caribbean as Mexico, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, the U.S. Virgin Islands and St. Maarten.

Scientists have warned that nearly all individuals of certain coral species have died from the disease and that “in some areas, this is essentially equivalent to local extinction, an ecological extirpation of those species.”