The Fight to Save Texas's Spectacular Coral Reefs

A team of unlikely allies came together to expand protections, but will it be enough?

- By Juli Berwald, Photography by Benjamin Lowy

Almost 100 feet under the sea, I was flying. I glided through a seascape of vibrant corals and tropical fish, inspecting the reef’s caves and nooks. I crossed a sandy area toward an emerald hillock, pushed my flippered feet downward, and hovered vertically. The coral before me was massive and majestic. I took in the matriarchs and patriarchs that surrounded me: enormous amber colonies as well as limestone thrones overlaid in jade green clusters.

To explore a grove of these ancients, possibly dating back 1,500 years, felt like hiking among the redwoods in California. Some scuba divers venture to this place for the manta rays as big as living-room carpets and whale sharks the size of school buses. But for me, these grand corals were the true giants.

The coral cover was so great that where the colonies bumped up against one another, a turf battle raged. Like jellyfish, corals have stinging cells in their tentacles. Some of those cells are deployed against other corals, pushing back colonies that want to claim more territory. Given the demise in coral cover worldwide, it had been decades since I’d seen such boundary wars. Here, the battle-wrought margins signaled this reef’s exceptional health.