Sunday On National Parks Traveler's Podcast: Coral Disaster At Virgin Islands National Park

Published Date

December 15, 2023

A nearly fully bleached brain coral a Virgin Islands National Park/Jeff Miller

A nearly fully bleached brain coral/Jeff Miller

While Virgin Islands National Park might seem idyllic from above water, beneath the surface of the Caribbean Sea the once vibrant coral reefs rimming the park have been impacted by a bleaching caused by abnormally high ocean temperatures and by a disease that combined could have devastating consequences.

Snorkel or scuba in the national park’s waters, or those that surround Virgin Islands Coral Reef National Monument, Buck Island Reef National Monument, or Salt River Bay National historical Park and Ecological Preserve and in many directions you’ll see a seemingly lifeless, chalky seascape.

To better understand what’s going on, our guest on Sunday's podcast is Jeff Miller, a National Park Service fisheries biologist who, before he retired in 2021, worked with the South Florida/Caribbean Inventory and Monitoring Network on developing a coral and fisheries monitoring program.

The program airs at 8 a.m. Eastern, 7 a.m. Central, 6 a.m. Mountain, and 5 a.m. Pacific. Find it on the National Parks Traveler website or wherever you find your podcasts.

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