Nothing is more exciting to watch than the sinking of a ship to form an artificial reef.
In some cases, pyrotechnics are used to cause an explosion, which delights the onlookers.
Because of concerns regarding impact on marine life and unnecessary structural damage to the vessel,
the actual sinking of most midsize and smaller ships involves the opening of seacocks,
using auxiliary pumps, or carefully cutting holes in the hull to flood the ship.
Prior to deployment, a ship must be carefully prepared.
Some of the reasons are to make it relatively safe for divers to probe the ship
when it is on the bottom as well as satisfy Coast Guard requirements to remove any pollutants,
hazardous wastes, or floatable materials.
A great deal of preliminary work goes into the project.
As with planning for other reefs, the bottom area offshore has to be selected, surveyed, permitted, and then buoyed.
Once the site is prepared, the ship is towed to the precise location and carefully positioned
so that it will sink at a predetermined spot within the permitted area.
That's not always an easy task.
Depending on the number of openings in the hull, a ship may sink quickly or just settle slowly.
As the once proud vessel slips beneath the surface,
water rushes over it and air bubbles mark a trail to the surface.
Minutes later, it sinks to its final resting place on the bottom.
Divers report that within a few hours, fish find this new haven and begin to take up residence.
It doesn't take long before the artificial reef starts to attract a complex system of marine life.
Several biological and regulatory parameters determine where an artificial reef can be located.
As in real estate, the key with artificial reefs is location, location, location.
The popular saying "If you build it, they will come" is not necessarily true.
The best designed artificial reef structure might fail to meet its objectives
if it is placed in the wrong habitat
or wrong water conditions for the organisms being targeted.
Additionally, every permitted reef site
must satisfy the requirements of local, state, and federal governments.
The site cannot contain sea grasses, coral of any type, or other hard bottom communities.
Water depth has to be at least 12 feet and the top of the reef has to be less than half the total depth of the water.
It must provide appropriate navigational clearance. Reef locations have to be out of any known shipping lanes.
There can't be any conflict with alternative uses of the site such as telecommunication cables,
ship anchorages, gas pipelines, sand borrow areas for beach re-nourishment,
shrimping grounds, or military restricted areas.
The structure must also be firmly anchored to the bottom or otherwise be stable enough
at the depth placed so that it will not move in a storm.
Typically, permitted areas have barren, sandy bottoms without vertical relief for different species of fish.
Nearly all Florida artificial reef permits are held by local coastal governments or the state.
The majority of artificial reef sites remain concentrated over a
relatively small permitted section of bottom near the coast.
In the western Panhandle, however, there are some large, offshore sites,
primarily because there are few conflicting uses
and less than 5% of the sea floor in this area consists of natural hard bottom.
This is the lowest percentage of hard bottom of any region on either coast of Florida.
These sites are only found in Northwest Florida and comprise a little under 400 nautical square miles.
Although people think of artificial reefs in open, offshore waters,
artificial reefs have been placed on open sand and mud bottom
in bay systems of Southwest Florida where they have demonstrated some success
in providing habitat for various life stages of recreationally important species
such as gray snapper, sheepshead, gag grouper, and even the tasty stone crab.
In addition to being a fishing and diving location or contributing to the coffers of coastal communities,
the artificial reef takes on other roles.
Through the use of unpublished and unpublicized reef sites where fishing pressure is minimal,
scientists can find answers to managing both artificial and natural reefs.
These sites also help to conserve the various species and enable populations to expand.
The volume of artificial reefs off the Florida coast is designed to disperse fishing and diving activities
and help take the pressure off some of the natural reefs.
The original purpose of an artificial reef was to create a fish-attracting device for adult specimens.
Researchers soon realized that short term reefs did not solve long term problems,
because they deprived fish of refuge and habitat once the reefs disintegrated.
Fish may have become more concentrated in fewer areas,
but the question of increased production still lingered.
The modern reef boasts a much longer life, which translates
into habitat for all fish life cycles and multiple generations of fish.
These reefs are now expected to enhance juvenile survival
as well as providing a haven for mature fish.
Managers try to insure that fishing pressure on adult fish
does not exceed the productivity of the reef. It's a delicate balance.
Overfishing without practicing catch and release spotlights one of the key problems of artificial reefs.
This can have a much more serious effect on bottom dwellers that remain on the reef.
Pelagic species may appear and disappear at will, moving on and off the reef at any given time.
That makes them much more difficult to target and catch.
The private deployment of reef materials without a permit violates the law.
The penalties can be severe, yet illegal dumping continues
to flourish along certain coastal areas.
Much of this material can be environmentally damaging
and often winds up as a navigational hazard or obstruction.
Usually, these private reefs are small and constructed from materials that do not last very long.
Storms have a tendency to move these reefs and break them up, since few are anchored down.
Because they are placed illegally, most are closely guarded secrets
and known only to the few anglers who deployed them.
Part of the financing from the Federal Sport Fish Restoration Program
and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
fuels a monitoring program in which divers go below to take stock.
Video reports are becoming more and more common,
but the basic approach centers on individuals estimating the population by species.
Through this continuous monitoring,
researchers gain a much better understanding of reef dynamics.
Fundamental designs have been tailored to make artificial reefs more effective.
The size of the reef horizontally or across the bottom
and how it is positioned can be important considerations.
Fishermen naturally want the largest reefs possible.
For one thing, a larger reef is easier to find
and the unscientific theory is that oversized reefs hold more fish.
The facts state, however, that as the size of a reef increases beyond a certain point,
there are diminishing returns.
A reef four times larger than another reef does not hold four times as many fish.
The vertical height of a reef is called profile or vertical relief.
For bottom dwellers, the ideal profile of a reef is approximately 36 and 40 inches.
That's why most modules are made to that size.
Science shows that scattered, patch style reefs are much better for the fish.
These are small habitat modules with a low profile
strewn over the sea floor rather than being concentrated.
The scattering process also enables reef residents to feed on non-reef prey.
When reef modules are too close, they tend to saturate the area and production suffers.
Multiple small reefs tend to maximize the total number of fish and the number of fish species.
These smaller reefs should be spaced at least 100-feet apart.
Artificial reefs in unpublished locations offer additional benefits.
During major storms, some reef materials may be displaced from their original location,
yet remain intact and, for a while, undiscovered.
More recently, small but stable and durable patch reefs have been systematically placed
at unpublished locations in permitted areas with the intent of achieving
achieving higher spawning ratios and the reestablishment of a more natural size/population spread.
Artificial reefs have other potential applications.
They may be developed as fishing sites to counter areas lost to fishing
through the creation of marine reserves
that encompass natural reef or other essential fish habitat areas.
A marine reserve is designed to increase the number of fish
by reducing the catch rate;
while artificial reefs increase the number of fish locally by extending hard bottom habitat
habitat into areas where this type of habitat did not exist.
Florida's artificial reef program ranks as a rousing success
and a pace-setting partnership with coastal agencies.
It has enhanced the recreational fishing potential
that makes the Sunshine State the Fishing Capital of the World.
At the same time, these reefs provide unparalleled sport diving opportunities.
Both of these benefits attract residents as well as visitors to our shores,
making their experiences exciting and memorable.
Coastal communities enjoy the economic rewards
of having artificial reefs in their home waters.
From a fisheries management view, the artificial reef
becomes a scientific tool for multi-tasked projects.
Through these strategically placed habitats, researchers are able
to monitor the effects on natural reefs as well as those created by man.
Undisclosed reefs help these biologists to compare what happens to a fish community
when angling pressure remains at a minimum or is non-existent.
The results will help the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
better manage the waters we fish and the species in them.
As stewards of our waters, all of us have a role and a responsibility
in helping to protect the concept of the artificial reef.
Through above water markings and electronic positioning tools,
they are relatively easy to locate.
Because of that, it is important for all of us to practice catch-and-release whenever possible.
Take what you need for food, but release what you don't absolutely need for tomorrow.
If all of us work together,
Florida's fantastic fishing will be around for a long time to come.