South Florida’s scuba diving community dives into Key Biscayne for annual Reel in for Reefs event

South Florida s scuba diving society and a national organization joined forces to help protect certain precious marine support The National Save the Sea Turtle Foundation held its second-annual community-wide reef cleanup event in Crandon Park Marina on Friday Organization agents explained the goal of the Reel in for Reefs event is to help keep oceans clean and clear of corruption such as bottles fishing equipment and other trash They saw that and saw the need for this to happen and they decided to fund and put on this event to have all of the dive boats work together instead of compete with each other to go save our oceans and save our sea turtles disclosed Lauren Mezzanotte Reel in for Reefs Debris Collection Coordinator Twenty-five dive boats with over crew members and divers sailed off into the waters of Key Biscayne Divers will remove debris like trash and discarded fishing gear from natural and artificial reefs The debris removal is happening ahead of nesting season which is a critical time for marine life Considered an iconic South Florida marine animal sea turtles are being affected by an ecosystem on the brink of extinction made worse by rising water temperatures So there s no indication that cooling will be going on and so with all of that we re looking at just continuing this heat stress out That heat stress is what causes corals to bleach and if it continues long enough or is severe enough causes corals to die revealed Mark Eakin International Coral Reef Executive Secretary Long periods of warm water temperatures cause the algae to release toxic compounds that the coral eject known as bleaching The International Coral Reef Initiative disclosed this is the fourth global bleaching event since Bleaching takes away the vibrant colors of the reef and pollutes the surrounding waters putting the future of the ecosystem in jeopardy Coral reefs aren t gonna last years At the rate we re going they re not gonna make it anywhere close to years into the future stated Melanie McField Coral Reef Monitoring Organization Co-Chair Divers at Key Biscayne don t want to see that prediction come true They mentioned their mission is something they re uniquely qualified for and are sticking by As divers we re the only ones who can get underwater to clean up our reefs So even though we all do pollute the ocean we re the ones who have the responsibility to go out there and clean it up noted Mezzanotte At the end of last year s event divers collected pounds of debris