Highly contagious marine epidemic rips through Caribbean’s coral reefs

Scientists collect coral samples at the Yellow Bank reef near the Bahamas’ Exumas Islands. SCTLD has now been confirmed in 22 countries and territories across the Caribbean and can spread at the rate of a mile a month. Photograph: Chicago Tribune/TNS/Getty

Krista Sherman understands ocean conservation work takes a good deal of patience. But the Bahamian-born marine scientist had never encountered a foe like stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD), and after efforts to monitor and treat the highly contagious outbreak in the Bahamas’ corals stalled, her patience was running thin.

“The disease is spreading really quickly. In some areas where we’ve been able to assess the rate of spread, we’re looking at a mile a month,” says Sherman, a researcher with the Bahamas-based Perry Institute for Marine Science.