Dead Coral

[Taz]

I have been touring the south side of Phuket in a inflatable boat for some weeks now.

All the coral is dead and it seems that it died some time ago. There is hardly any fish to see.

I have heard a few stories from the locals why this has happened.

One that stands out the most and the most plausible is that TNT was used for fishing some time ago.

Would anybody care to comment on the real reason?

Thanks,

Taz...

[mikejphuket]

Unrestricted property development leading to runoff causing sedimentation covering and therefore killing the corals. Dynamite fishing destruction is easy to spot- there is a big hole where the bomb went off!

I have been touring the south side of Phuket in a inflatable boat for some weeks now.

All the coral is dead and it seems that it died some time ago. There is hardly any fish to see.

I have heard a few stories from the locals why this has happened.

One that stands out the most and the most plausible is that TNT was used for fishing some time ago.

Would anybody care to comment on the real reason?

Thanks,

Taz...

[Taz]

Thanks for that comment Mickjphuket. This maybe the case in some over developments on the island, but some islands I visited never had developments on them. A dynamite blast would leave a hole in most cases, but maybe over the years these holes may have been filled in with the movement of the sea bed? Or maybe the blast caused a shockwave over the sea bed but never made a crater, but at the same killing the coral?

Thanks,

Taz...

[Sir Burr]

If you were in the south of the island, on the east side, all the coral got smothered in the 1960's and 1970's by the silt produced from offshore tin dredgers. Before Phuket became a tourist destination.

[Taz]

If you were in the south of the island, on the east side, all the coral got smothered in the 1960's and 1970's by the silt produced from offshore tin dredgers. Before Phuket became a tourist destination.

Thanks for information Sir Burr. Well that seems more plausible then the dynamite story. So that explains the mud flats in that area.

Thanks,

Taz

[pumper]

I have been touring the south side of Phuket in a inflatable boat for some weeks now.

All the coral is dead and it seems that it died some time ago. There is hardly any fish to see.

as the ocean absorbs C02 the ph (acidity) of the water changes & is killing the coral globally. the ocean absorbs much of the atmospheric c02.

separate from climate change, emissions from fossil fuels is killing the ocean by altering the chemistry.

i see the dying ocean as a bigger current issue than greenland's ice.

Edited February 2, 2008 by pumper

[seonai]

Taz I was on a small island in Phang Nga Bay when the Tsunami happened and a lot of coral was destroyed then so maybe it was similar near Phuket, after the Tsunami our beaches were left covered in dead coral

[Taz]

Taz I was on a small island in Phang Nga Bay when the Tsunami happened and a lot of coral was destroyed then so maybe it was similar near Phuket, after the Tsunami our beaches were left covered in dead coral

Seonai you are right about the tsunami, it did a lot of damage to a lot of coral.

I understand that the tsunami never did any damage to the south side of the island around the Po bay area.

The coral looks like it has been dead for years.

Thanks,

Taz...

[Jingjok]

as the ocean absorbs C02 the ph (acidity) of the water changes & is killing the coral globally. the ocean absorbs much of the atmospheric c02.

separate from climate change, emissions from fossil fuels is killing the ocean by altering the chemistry.

i see the dying ocean as a bigger current issue than greenland's ice.

Interesting. Thanks for that. I've been puzzled for a few years as to where all the coral had gone.

I haven’t seen any which is not seriously depleted, anywhere in the world, since the Maldives 20 years ago. And I hear it’s getting bad there too.

But no one ever says anything, and I could find no explanations on the web. Tourist boards still boast beautiful coral over the place, but when one arrives at said place, the coral’s dead.

Could ocean pH have changed enough to have caused all the destruction? If that is the proven answer I’d have thought it would be major news and common knowledge.

What I do know is it’s not so-called ‘dynamite fishing’. A few beer bottles of ammonium nitrate mixed with fuel oil (plus something a bit stronger to initiate it) couldn’t do all that damage. Stuff wot goes bang is my subject, but marine biology is not!

[Sir Burr]

It's not changing Ph that is killing the coral world-wide. It is the global rise in mean average water temperature.

A well known phenomenon.

[stevenl]

Taz I was on a small island in Phang Nga Bay when the Tsunami happened and a lot of coral was destroyed then so maybe it was similar near Phuket, after the Tsunami our beaches were left covered in dead coral

Some corals were damaged during the tsunami, but: not on the divesites, and overall not that much in the Phuket area.

It may be helpful if the op gave a more detailed description of the area he is talking about.

[Jingjok]

It's not changing Ph that is killing the coral world-wide. It is the global rise in mean average water temperature.

A well known phenomenon.

Oh yes, that’s an explanation which I vaguely recall from somewhere else. An explanation which is plausible, convincing, simple and, probably wrong.

Coral is an ancient genus. I'd have thought it has been around long enough to withstand the relatively very minor climatic changes that have been recorded so far during modern human history. As I said I'm no marine biologist or climatologist, but I do know that global phenomena, including climate, vary quite widely over geological time. Even the magnetic poles reverse for Christ's sake! The oceans aren't quite boiling off into space yet. A few tenths of a degree here and there shouldn't wipe out a marine genus in a flash. Unless coral really does require an extraordinarily precise environment. In which case it would have been wiped out many times already. Just my personal assessment, not supported by any direct empirical evidence at all of course, but that's what internet forums are for

I grew up in fear of the coming ice sheets: I still have a book I was given at Christmas by a concerned Aunt: 'Nigel Calder and the Threat of Ice'. (What I'd really wanted was a Johnny Seven gun, but there it is). The fifties and early sixties were over, the Soviets had turned around their Cuban-bound ships, the grey skies everyone blamed on 'The Bomb' had cleared and the sun was shining again, both literally and metaphorically. The Zeitgeist had moved: now it was advancing ice. In a post-agrarian secularised society humans have a deep need for a faith; and for a devil. Now the devil is Global Warming. And so it goes on.

My belief is that no one has the slightest clue what is happening to the coral.

[Taz]

Taz I was on a small island in Phang Nga Bay when the Tsunami happened and a lot of coral was destroyed then so maybe it was similar near Phuket, after the Tsunami our beaches were left covered in dead coral

Some corals were damaged during the tsunami, but: not on the divesites, and overall not that much in the Phuket area.

It may be helpful if the op gave a more detailed description of the area he is talking about.

Po Bay. Nakha Yai Is. Nakha Noi Is, Reat Is. And a few others in that area.

Taz...

[stevenl]

Taz I was on a small island in Phang Nga Bay when the Tsunami happened and a lot of coral was destroyed then so maybe it was similar near Phuket, after the Tsunami our beaches were left covered in dead coral

Some corals were damaged during the tsunami, but: not on the divesites, and overall not that much in the Phuket area.

It may be helpful if the op gave a more detailed description of the area he is talking about.

Po Bay. Nakha Yai Is. Nakha Noi Is, Reat Is. And a few others in that area.

Taz...

Thanks, I think Sir Burr is right with his explanation about that area.

[Chantal]

It may be helpful if the op gave a more detailed description of the area he is talking about.

Po Bay. Nakha Yai Is. Nakha Noi Is, Reat Is. And a few others in that area.

Taz...

Sorry Taz - still dont know where these sites are in the south. As far as I know Po Bay is located on the northern end of Phuket? Please correct me if I am wrong.