Year Old Nautical Maps Reveal How Badly Weve Screwed Up Floridas Reefs. Old sailors tales about the seas being so full of fish you could walk on them, or oysters the size of frisbees, tend to inspire skepticism today, and for good reasonmost of us have very little direct experience with the oceans, except for the occasional news article about how weve screwed it up beyond repair. But the oceans of yesteryear really were more plentiful than they are today, and a new analysis of 2. A first of its kind comparison of 1. Your portal to Balboa CA, a small Southern California coastal peninsula town. Features about its colorful history and people. Balboa Cams bring you live local views. British nautical charts with modern coral reef databases suggests that reefs were far more widespread throughout the Florida Keys several centuries ago, particularly along coastlines and in Florida Bay. Its a finding that could have implications for reef conservation and restoration, prompting ecologists to rethink what constitutes an undisturbed ecosystem. And it all started when historical ecologist Loren Mc. Clenachan became captivated by a weathered old map she stumbled upon at the British Admiralty Archives some ten years back. I actually had a copy of it on my wall for a while, Mc. Clenachan told Gizmodo, explaining how map, part of a pair of nautical charts of the northern and southern Keys created by cartographer George Gauld for the British Admiralty between 1. It was made while the Brits owned the Florida Keys, Mc. Clenachan explained. Part of the expansion of their empire was to get really good at sailing, and they knew that other shipsSpanish oneshad crashed, in this area. My understanding is that Gauld wanted to continue the mapping, but 1. By comparing Gaulds maps with modern coral cover information from several databases, Mc. Clenachan and her colleagues arrived at a bleak conclusion roughly half of the seafloor occupied by corals in the vicinity of the Florida Keys in the late 1. Much of the dieback seems to have occurred in Florida Bay where coral cover was an estimated 8. Gaulds maps. Importantly, this suggests recent estimates of coral dieback in the Keys, derived from data collected in the 1. Science Advances. Weve really lost these nearshore reefslots of them probably disappeared before we even started studying them in the water, Mc. Watch Free Yogi Bear 2. Clenachan said. She suspects the dieoff patterns are due to greater human disturbance close to shorelines, and in the case of Florida Bay, changes following the widespread drainage of the Everglades in the early 2. Of course, there are plenty of caveats. This study only compared two nautical charts from a single time point in the 1. Whats more, Gaulds charts dont distinguish between dead coral and live coral, nor do they contain coral absence data. Wouldnt it be amazing if the Honda City Turbo and its Motocompo scooter were featured on Jason Drives Hmmm. We have no way of knowing if areas where Gauld marked no coral truly lacked reefs, or if he simply never visited these places to find out. Ive reached out to several coral biologists to see if they have any other thoughts about the merits or limitations of the study, and will update this post if I hear back. Even just qualitatively speaking, though, snapshots into the past like this can be illuminating. How To Watch Tales Of The Black Freighter Cartoon' title='How To Watch Tales Of The Black Freighter Cartoon' />I think its a shifting baseline storyit puts the modern declines, due to ocean acidification, climate change, development and pollution, in context, Mc. Clenachan said. Perhaps, places that we presume have always been coral free used to host vibrant reefs. In terms of restoration, knowing where coral used to be is useful. Personally, I cant help but wonder how many old sailors tales weve written off as legend have a nugget of truth at their center. Science Advances.