Looe Key Reef Overview скачать в хорошем качестве

Looe Key Reef Overview

Florida Sea Base's Marine STEM Director Michael Timm gives us a nice overview of Looe Key Reef, about 6 miles east of Summerland Key in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. One of the top 10 most visited coral reefs in the world; I counted 28 boats moored up to mooring balls on our first visit but Mike says that during peak visitation there can be up to a hundred vessels present at any one time, tied six deep on each of the many dozens of mooring balls. The Boy Scouts have been coming to this reef consistently even before the establishment of their nearby Brinton Environmental Center on Summerland Key opened in 2001. Mike discusses the site as well and the general management issues and research efforts to understand the stressors impacting this reef as well as reefs throughout the Florida Keys region. Looe Key reef has been a federal Marine Protected Area (MPA) since 1981, first as a National Marine Sanctuary and now as a so-called Existing Management Area within the larger Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Looe Key Existing Management Area covers1824.8 hectares (7 square miles) and contains both the Looe Key Sanctuary Preservation Area and the Looe Key Special-Use (Research Only) Area. Looe Key was named for the wreck of the British frigate, H.M.S. Loo, which ran aground in the early morning hours of February 5, 1744, pushed, according to British courts, into the reef by the Florida current. Little remains of the wreck but its story. The ship was named after an old seaport town in Cornwall, England, and was launched in 1706. Thirteen commanders later, it ran aground on what was then a sandy island. The most widely reported reason given for the added "e" to Loo on the charts is that it resulted from a clerk's error in listing the ship as "HMS Looe" on admiralty documents created after the vessel was lost. The sand island/key is all but gone now with only a very small region of reef breaking the surface on extreme low tides.