An Oceanographer Suggests Creating and Underwater National Park
Narrator: This is Science Today. Coral reefs provide several
benefits to their surrounding area, but can suffer because of
overfishing. Fish are important because they eat the algae which
can overgrow on a coral and eventually kill it. Marine ecologist
Stuart Sandin of the University of California , San Diego 's
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, says that creating
underwater protected areas could benefit both the fish and the
corals. Sandin: You can put in a park in certain regions and the
fish stocks will grow up in some marine protected areas. A
national park underwater and you just don't allow fishing in
that area. If you don't allow fishing, then the fish will start
to grow back. You have the fish doing their service eating the
algae, protecting the algae from overgrowing the corals or
fertilizing the bacteria on the corals. Narrator: Sandin says
this type of protection is necessary in allowing coral reefs to
recover. Sandin: Coral reefs h