Rising Temperatures. Rising Together.

If you've been watching the Florida Keys over the past few weeks, you've probably found yourself refreshing the NOAA Coral Reef Watch dashboard more often than you'd like.

Unfortunately, the news isn't encouraging.

credit: https://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/product/5km/index_5km_sst.php (July10, 2026)

Sea surface temperatures surrounding the Florida Keys have climbed into the 90°F (32°C) range, already exceeding the thermal thresholds known to trigger coral bleaching. NOAA has elevated bleaching alerts across portions of the Florida Reef Tract, and temperatures are increasing earlier in the summer than they did during the historic 2023 marine heatwave. Scientists are once again preparing for significant bleaching and implementing emergency response strategies to protect high-value corals and preserve genetic diversity.

For many of us, this feels painfully familiar.

In 2023, unprecedented ocean temperatures transformed vibrant reefs into ghostly white landscapes in a matter of weeks. The event became one of the most severe marine heatwaves ever recorded in the region, reshaping restoration priorities and forcing managers to move corals into deeper water or land-based facilities to save them. Those lessons are guiding today's response.

But this story isn't just about rising temperatures.

It's about rising together.

Conservation Isn't Waiting for Perfect Conditions

Across the SAFE Coral Program network, our partners have spent years working in response to moments exactly like this.

Thousands of corals are being cared for in professional aquariums, zoos, and research facilities across North America, including Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) accredited facilities. Every day, aquarists are monitoring water quality, veterinarians are assessing coral health, researchers are refining propagation techniques, and educators are helping guests understand why they should care about these remarkable animals.

These efforts may not make national headlines, but they are exactly what conservation e looks like.

Every coral propagated...

Every new genotype safeguarded...

Every student inspired...

Every family informed...

Every successful spawning event...

Every partner willing to share data...

Together, they create a safety net for reefs facing unprecedented change.

The Florida Aquarium (Tampa, Florida) is one of six national training sites of the SAFE Coral Program's FRTRP Coral Aquarist Program. The program hosts coral aquarists from around the world, creating the conservation workforce that will ensure the future of reefs for our children and our children's children. (credit: The Florida Aquarium)

The Good News We Sometimes Forget

While heat stress is increasing, so is our collective capacity to respond.

New forecasting tools can predict bleaching risk weeks in advance, giving managers valuable time to prepare. Coral nurseries are improving methods for protecting genetically important colonies during extreme heat events. Institutions across the AZA network continue to refine husbandry, reproduction, and restoration techniques that simply didn't exist a decade ago.

This isn't false optimism.

It's measurable progress.

Conservation today is faster, more collaborative, and more informed than ever before.

What Can Someone in New Hampshire, Ohio, Arizona, or Oregon Do?

One of the most common questions we hear is:

"I don't live near a coral reef. Can I really make a difference?"

Absolutely.

Healthy reefs depend on healthy oceans, and healthy oceans connect every community in America.

Whether you live on the Atlantic coast, in the Midwest, the arid Southwest, or in the Rocky Mountains, your daily choices ripple downstream.

Butterfly Pavilion (Westminster, Colorado) : Future coral conservationists, Neela and Ryder, and their family, team up with the staff of the Butterfly Pavilion to host a "Cookies for Conservation" sale, inspired by the Florida Reef Tract Rescue Project, to raise funds for coral conservation efforts. (credit: Butterfly Pavilion)

So many things you can do:

• Plant gardens and maintain lawns that require less water to thrive

• Reduce energy use and support clean energy that helps slow ocean warming.

• Choose sustainable seafood that protects reef ecosystems.

• Reduce fertilizer use, clean up pet waste, and pick up plastic pollution that ultimately reach our waterways.

• Support AZA aquariums, zoos, and organizations working to restore coral reefs.

• Share accurate information about coral reefs and climate impacts with friends and family.

• Encourage the next generation to care about our oceans, because tomorrow's reef scientists may currently live hundreds of miles from the coast.

  
  

Conservation has never been confined by geography.

Our Greatest Strength Is Each Other

The Florida Reef Tract is experiencing another difficult summer.

There is no way to soften that reality.

But there is another reality worth remembering.

Never before have so many institutions, scientists, aquarists, educators, veterinarians, volunteers, and conservation organizations worked together so intentionally to protect a single ecosystem.

The SAFE Coral Program exists because no one institution can save coral reefs alone.

Together, however, we are building something far more powerful than any individual restoration project.

We're building capacity.

We're building knowledge.

We're building partnerships.

And perhaps most importantly, we're building hope backed by action.

The water temperatures may be increasing, but so is the commitment of an entire community dedicated to ensuring that future generations inherit living reefs, not just stories about them.

We're excited to continue doing what this network does best: collaborating, innovating, sharing, and never giving up on the future of coral reefs.

The World’s Ocean Memory: 250 Years of Data Guiding Reef Management

"The earliest in situ profile measurements in World Ocean Database 2023 are of temperature at the sea surface (SST) and at about 183 m depth collected on December 15, 1772 (~ 55°S, 22°E) by crew of the paddle boat launched from the Great Britain HMS Resolution, commanded by Captain James Cook. While SST was probably obtained using a water bucket and hand-held thermometers, subsurface temperature measurements were likely collected using a Stephen Hales water sampling bottle with an enclosed thermometer. " -WOD23

How the times have changed!

"The World Ocean Database 2023 (WOD23) is the world’s most complete and representative digital collection to date of near real time and delayed mode oceanographic in situ profile measurements collected from ocean observing systems over the 1772 to 2022 instrumental record. It is a collection of irreplaceable data records containing ~18.6 million water column profiles with ~3.6 billion measurements of 27 commonly measured physical and chemical variables, including 17 essential ocean and 11 climate variables, ~22.7 million meteorological and sea state observations, and more than 245 thousand plankton tows. WOD23 serves as a foundational and reliable data resource by and for global marine communities by making globally scattered and heterogeneous data FAIR, uniformly formatted, quality controlled, and searchable by means of extensive granular metadata. The data were sourced from long-term archived primary data, thus preserving its provenance, traceability, and authoritativeness. New and updated data are made available as quarterly updates to WOD23. The data are used in research applications, including earth system models, climate data reanalysis, and diagnostic studies. WOD23 is an activity of the International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange, World Data System, and Center for Marine Meteorology and Ocean Climate Data." - WOD23

Our planet, with its mighty environment manager the ocean, is adjusting in the face of human advancement and the collection and archiving of data has never been more important. The WOD23 is a weighty resource that archives data recording how well our planet, in real time and through the lens of ocean and coastal monitoring systems, is adapting to our influence over the last 250 years.

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/world-ocean-database

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/data/oceans/woa/WOD/DOC/wod_intro.pdf

While the WOD23 is not coral‑specific, it outlines capabilities that directly support coral‑reef management, resilience planning, and restoration across the Western Atlantic and Caribbean. The WOD underpins nearly all modern environmental assessments relevant to coral reefs in the Western Atlantic and Caribbean. Its long‑term baselines and standardized datasets are essential for detecting warming trends, assessing bleaching risk, validating satellite products, and understanding the environmental drivers that shape reef health across Florida, the Bahamas, the Antilles, the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, and the Gulf of Mexico.

The key value of this resource is strategic. WOD data directly support evidence‑based decision‑making for coral‑reef management, restoration planning, and climate‑resilience initiatives. The database enables regional comparisons, informs restoration site selection, and strengthens forecasting models used to anticipate bleaching and other climate‑driven stressors. As the region experiences increased disturbance frequency, declining reef ecosystem functionality the WOD provides the environmental context needed to prioritize investments, coordinate across jurisdictions, and plan for long‑term reef and coastal resilience.

The Silver Lining of a Reef in Peril: Building the Next Generation of Coral Stewards

In 2014, stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) was first observed in the vicinity of Miami, Florida. This fast-moving, devastating disease swept through Florida's Coral Reef like wildfire. By 2022, SCTLD had become resident along the entire 360-mile length of the largest coral reef ecosystem in the continental United States, decimating already struggling coral populations and expanding its impact across the Caribbean.

It is often hard to find optimism within such a grim scenario, but as conservationists faced with the decline of ecosystems around the world, we are forced to look for the silver lining in every situation. Even in this case, there are positives to be found. The impact of SCTLD on Florida's Coral Reef launched scientists, resource managers, and regulators into a collaboration that would set the coral conservation community on a new path, a path of collaboration and innovation never before seen.

Three-Pronged Plan for SCTLD

In 2018, a three-pronged plan was launched by state and federal partners to address SCTLD along Florida's Coral Reef. This plan included:

• Caring for corals with SCTLD on the reef using novel treatments to slow the disease spread.

• Researching the disease in the laboratory to understand its process, causes, and why so many important reef-building coral species were susceptible.

• Mounting a never-before-seen rescue operation to remove thousands of corals from the reef ahead of the disease progression for safekeeping on land.

These approaches required funding, intense collaboration, and, in some cases, the immediate development of skills and technology.

Collaboration Across Sectors

To support the plan, agencies called upon universities, the non-profit sector, and zoos and aquariums to support the response plan. In late 2018, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) was invited to join the effort. The State of Florida invited the AZA to partner in the rescue effort and provide homes for the thousands of coral "reefugees" needing relocation after removal from the reef. The AZA responded, and within months, corals previously in peril from SCTLD were traveling to AZA-accredited facilities across the country.

Building Coral Care Capacity

Exciting as this collaboration was, it was evident from the beginning that the most limiting factor to the plan's success was the availability of coral caregivers. While funding and infrastructure could be allocated, the expertise needed for long-term care of these special animals was a finite resource. Thus, the need to expand the care workforce became apparent.

In 2022, another milestone was achieved. AZA facilities, in collaboration with universities and government representatives, began developing a tool to build coral care capacity.

The Coral Aquarist Program (CAP) was launched in 2023. Since then, the CAP has been a game changer for coral rescue efforts in the U.S. and is now expanding its influence across the Caribbean and beyond. The skills, expertise, and network-building fostered by the CAP are informing the coral conservation efforts of other communities struggling to save their local reefs, using the Florida coral rescue effort as a case study.

CAP Participants and Trainers work side by side (The Florida Aquarium)

CAP Participant, Stefana Roberts (Bahamas) at the Florida Coral Rescue Center (2024-2025)

CAP Participant, Alfredo Lawton (Puerto Rico) at The Florida Aquarium (2024-2025)

CAP Participant, Joe Unsworth (Uni. of Miami) at the Georgia Aquarium ( 2024-2025)

Training the Next Generation of Coral Caregivers

To date, the CAP has graduated 23 coral care aquarists and is expanding to meet the increasing demand for coral caregivers in conservation efforts worldwide. This year's participants join previous graduates from the U.S. and its Caribbean and Paqcific territories, as well as, eight countries in the Caribbean region. And this year, the course is expanding to include six training sites, aiming to nearly double the annual graduation rate.

Partners in Coral Conservation

We are proud of and wish to thank our CAP partners:

• The Florida Aquarium, Tampa, Florida

• Georgia Aquarium, Atlanta, Georgia

• Florida Coral Rescue Center, Orlando, Florida

• Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo, Omaha, Nebraska

• Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, Columbus, Ohio

• Riverbanks Zoo and Garden, Columbia, South Carolina

• The Aquarium Vet

• AZA Learn

Welcoming the 2026–2027 CAP Cohort

We are thrilled to introduce the year's class of CAP participants:

• Ayi Ajavon — Mote Marine Laboratory / Mote SEA (USA)

• Katie St. Clair — Texas A&M University at Galveston / Sea Life Facility (USA)

• Melissa Cobo — Coral Restoration Foundation (USA)

• Nikkie Cox — Coral Restoration Foundation (USA)

• Nichole Danser — ScubbleBubbles Foundation (Aruba)

• Paige Deaton — SeaWorld San Diego (USA)

• Ernst Noijons — Reef Renewal Foundation (Bonaire)

• Maria Fernanda Maya — Blue Indigo Foundation (Colombia)

• Samantha Mehr — San Antonio Zoo (USA)

• Gracie Perry Garnette — Turks and Caicos Reef Fund (Turks and Caicos)

• Jason Quetel — University of the Virgin Islands (USVI)

• Davis Strobel — University of the Virgin Islands (USVI)

The Silver Lining

SCTLD remains one of the most devastating coral diseases ever recorded, but its impact also ignited a wave of collaboration, innovation, and capacity building that continues to reshape coral conservation. What began as a desperate response to an ecological crisis has evolved into a powerful, coordinated movement, one that is training new experts, strengthening global partnerships, and giving threatened reefs a fighting chance.

In the face of loss, we found a silver lining. The establishment of the CAP exemplifies the power of collective action in the face of ecological crises. By training a new generation of coral caregivers, we are not only addressing the immediate needs of Florida's Coral Reef but also creating a network of skilled professionals ready to tackle similar challenges across the globe.

As we look forward to the future, the expansion of the CAP and the dedication of our partners highlight a growing commitment to coral conservation. With each graduating class, we are better equipped to ensure the survival of coral populations and the ecosystems they support. Together, we can foster resilience in our oceans, turning the tide against the threats facing these vital marine ecosystems.