By: Eva Huang

For decades, illegal traffickers have targeted corals. Corals are tiny invertebrates that live in huge colonies, forming beautiful reefs in the ocean. Countries like Australia, Indonesia, Fiji, and the Caribbean have some of the most beautiful and colorful reefs in the world.

Sadly, marine-life traffickers most often target these countries. Traffickers are chiseling out the corals and putting them into bags to be shipped around the world. Although most of the coral that countries like the United States receive is legal, illegal coral can be secretly imported with other corals.

The U.S. is the largest consumer of marine coral. According to Ashley Skeen, a wildlife inspector for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, “The U.S. is the primary market for marine corals.” With many countries, especially the U.S., buying corals, there are a lot of endangered species. More than 25 species of coral are endangered or threatened.

Even worse, most of the time, the coral arrives sick or dead. Whenever corals arrive sick, it is due to stress. When they are stressed, corals create this mucus layer on their outside for protection. But, this layer of protection can be deadly, especially during importation, because it can change the pH and oxygen levels in the small bag they are contained in. According to The New York Times, “It is not uncommon for a shipment of coral to contain animals [itself] that have already died.”

When aquariums try to return corals to the wild, it is usually impossible. Returning them back to the wild is nearly impossible because it is very hard to find where they originated from or the country that they were taken from doesn’t want to take them back. Many species are becoming more threatened, and so it is very important to take care of nature and respect wildlife!