The Sacken Reef
After reading all about the coral reef and the dire situation that it's in, you may want a real life example of a coral reef that is in incredible danger. The Sacken Reef is a cold-water reef in Sweden. While people don't usually associate a cold country like Sweden with a coral reef, Sweden actually used to have 3 major reefs. However, because of pollution, ocean acidification, and the dragging of fishing nets that break apart reefs, that has been reduced to just one, the Sacken reef. But even this reef has almost disappeared. This reef used to be over 5,000 meters in area, but only 300-500 meters remain. The reef has become so helpless that scientists are considering introducing foreign Norwegian corals in order to save the reefs. These reefs are especially important because some of the corals are over 6,200 years old, and some of the corals are estimated to be even older than that. In order to be able to research ocean conditions at those times, these corals need to remain a part of the ecosystem. However, these corals have been pushed to the limit, and there is no telling whether adding a foreign species will affect the reef negatively or positively, but it is the marine scientist's last resort. We wouldn't have been pushed to such extreme measures if we had been more careful about where fishermen dragged their fishing nets, or where pollution was being dumped. For now, we can only wait and see if this living artifact of history can pull through.