Corals
To many, the ocean looks like an endless grey expanse of water, but even the darkest waters hold colourful, vibrant life. Many parts of the sea floor off the B.C. coast appear are home to red, purple, orange, yellow and pink cold-water corals and the intriguing organisms that live among them.
Deep-sea corals come in an unbelievable variety of shapes and sizes. Some are small, like solitary orange cup corals. Others, such as Primnoa "red tree" corals, can be several meters tall and wide. Unlike their tropical counterparts, our corals don’t form reefs. Instead, they can grow in dense ‘forests’.
Whether alone or in dense ‘forests’, corals create underwater homes where other marine animals can hide, reproduce, feed and grow. Corals provide homes, nurseries, and feeding areas for many commercially important fish, and invertebrates such as crab and shrimp.
Deep-sea corals tend to be fragile and are susceptible to being damaged and destroyed by some human activities. In particular, bottom fisheries – especially bottom trawling – are well-known to be primary threats to deep-sea corals. Unfortunately, because they grow very slowly, corals are not able to recover quickly from these impacts. When corals are damaged, juvenile fish and crustaceans lose important habitat they need for protection, feeding, and growing. Protecting these corals is more than just saving a unique ecosystem, it's protecting the foundation of long-term fishing industry and an important source of food.
To learn more about cold water corals visit the Finding Coral Expedition website.
To see maps of where corals have been found in B.C. waters, visit the Coral pages of the Marine Atlas of Pacific Canada.
Sources:
Nicole Pellegrin, Jim Boutillier, Ray Lauzier, Stacey Verrin, and Duncan Johannessen. (2007) Ecosystem Overview Pacific North Coast Integrated Management Area - Appendix F: Invertebrates.
Glen Jamieson, Nicole Pellegrin, and Sabine Jesson. (2007) Taxonomy and zoogeography of cold-water corals in coastal British Columbia.
