Super Coral Zoos

The Super Reefs Initiative seeks to protect super corals in two ways:

1. The Super Reefs Initiative aims to protect climate resilient coral reefs in situ (in the ocean), by incorporating them into Marine Protected Areas;
2. Super Coral Zoos takes representative corals from each Super Reef and protects them in permanent land-based facilities using large public aquariums to do so.

The Super Reefs Initiative brings together scientists, conservation organizations, and the governments of coral reef nations to locate as many demonstrably resilient reefs as possible and create Marine Protected Areas to protect them from threats such as overfishing, dynamiting, and dredging. Such in situ protections of naturally climate-resilient reefs are an urgent and critical step in the global effort to ensure coral reef futures.

But they may not be  enough. Marine Protected Areas are not necessarily absolute or guaranteed in the long term. For this reason, we propose additional long-term protections for Super Corals in stable, land-based facilities. The Super Coral Zoos Project will harnesses existing husbandry expertise, infrastructure and broad social platforms of Large Public Aquariums across the United States to protect representative coral species from Super Reef sites within public exhibits of Super Corals, live banks and eventually, frozen DNA banks.