An unidentified disease is ravaging Florida's 360-mile-long coral reef

A coral reef with fish.
(Image credit: Hassan Ammar/AFP via Getty Images)

Florida is home to the world's third-largest coral reef, but it's quickly crumbling away.

Rising ocean temperatures have bleached Florida's corals, making them prone to disease — including the one that is currently ravaging the 360-mile-long reef. A bacterial disease has swept through nearly half of Florida's corals over the past four years, and NPR says that the unidentified infection can kill a coral within weeks.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Kathryn Krawczyk

Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.