Why they are important

Though coral reefs are cool they are also very endangered and disappearing quickly as according to npr.org “Rising ocean temperatures killed about 14% of the world's coral reefs in just under a decade, according to a new analysis from the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network.” Coral reefs are very important to lots of fish as they have over 25% of all marine life (https://www.coralguardian.org). Coral reefs act as shelter for lots of fish from storms and the elements and can also help stop erosion (https://www.coralguardian.org). Many people rely on coral reefs too as it gives them employment, food and medicine (https://www.coralguardian.org). How would you feel if the beautiful coral reefs disappeared and all the animals with it well if we don’t stop hurting coral reefs they could disappear.

The humphead wrasse has a very weird adaptation where it developed large lips to eat its prey (storymaps.arcgis.com). Humphead wrasse are very important to coral reefs as they eat crown-of-thorn starfish and crown-of-thorn starfish eat coral reefs (www.worldwildlife.org). The humphead wrasse are really endangered because of overfishing and that they are really hard to reproduce (www.biologicaldiversity.org). The reason humphead wrasse are overfished is because they are a luxury dish and that means they are really popular to eat. (www.biologicaldiversity.org). If the humphead wrasse went extinct coral reefs would disappear and the humphead wrasse population has been going down and down so if we don’t stop this they could disappear.