Two corals in the Commonwealth\u2014Acropora globiceps and Pavona diffluens\u2014 have been classified as threatened on a list put out last week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.<\/p>\n
The two corals are among 20 other threatened species on NOAA\u2019S 2014 Corals Endangered Species Act listing for areas in U.S. Caribbean and Pacific waters.<\/p>\n
Acropora globiceps and Pavona diffluens are also listed as threatened in Guam, as well as in other Pacific areas like the Pacific Remote Islands and American Samoa.<\/p>\n
Acropora globiceps is commonly found on upper reef slopes and reef flats in shallow, tropical reef environments, and at a depth of up to 8 meters, according to data on threatened species found online.<\/p>\n
Pavona diffluens occurs in most reef environments, and is found from 5 to 20 meters.<\/p>\n
NOAA describes the recent listing as \u201cunprecedented\u201d in the amount of information sought, obtained, and analyzed in the ruling of threatened species.<\/p>\n
General reef building coral biology, habitat characteristics and threats, as well as other species-specific and demographic information were studied, according to NOAA.<\/p>\n
NOAA said they intend to work with other agencies as well as possibly affected coastal jurisdictions on \u201cmitigation measures and recovery strategies for the newly listed corals.\u201d<\/p>\n
As of now, there are no prohibitions on the two species relating to individual contact as they are listed as threatened and not endangered; prohibitions against taking are for species listed as endangered under ESA.<\/p>\n
However, NOAA said\u2014on the listing\u2014that they may specify regulations for the 20 threatened corals in the future.<\/p>\n
Last week\u2019s list is significantly different from the proposed role in 2012, which listed 66 threatened and endangered species.<\/p>\n
NOAA said changes were brought on by new information gathered and received, as well public comments that helped refine their decisions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two corals in the Commonwealth\u2014Acropora globiceps and Pavona diffluens\u2014 have been classified as threatened on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900,4],"tags":[167,542,51,627],"class_list":["post-177947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-local-news","tag-american-samoa","tag-caribbean-2","tag-guam","tag-noaa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177947\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}