FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — As climate change continues to rewrite temperature records on land and in our oceans, coral scientists are taking action.

Stung from a recent bleaching event, another rescue team took to the water to save endangered nurseries.

The Coral Restoration Foundation, the world’s largest coral restoration organization, is trying to save its work from dangerous ocean heat.

“We have already asked permission from the regulators to move about 3,500 corals from our different nurseries to Elbow nurseries, seeking better conditions there. That’s happening. We’re just waiting for the green light to do it,” said Phanor Montoya, restoration program manager for the Coral Restoration Foundation.

A rescue operation ready for the call.

And this week, they got it.

Montoya said the goal was to move corals farther north, where conditions could be more suitable.

“What we needed to do today was move corals from our nurseries in the south, which is Tavernier, and move it further north, where we expect the temperatures and the conditions to be more suitable for corals during this summer,” Montoya said.

A summer like no other, fueled by man-made climate change, with the world’s oceans reaching their hottest ever recorded temperatures in July, beating the record set in 2023 — a year that saw devastating bleaching for corals in the Keys.

Those lessons spurred the Coral Restoration Foundation to act.

“The first thing that we learned from 2023 is that redundancy is key. And that’s precisely what we did today. Build a redundant gene bank,” Montoya said.

A couple dozen divers from the rescue team quickly moved 1,000 corals from different species — 130 genotypes, with five copies of each — from their Tavernier nursery north to near Elbow Reef.

“Elbow Reef is known for high water flow and is known for having some of the last elkhorn corals that survived the 2023 bleaching event. So we want to take advantage of whatever environmental conditions that location has that has provided a better outcome for the corals,” Montoya said.

The Coral Restoration Foundation isn’t alone conducting these rescue operations.

Last month, the University of Miami did the same, moving corals from its ocean nurseries to its Key Biscayne hatchery on shore.

“They’re so important and they’re so critically endangered, that we decided that the moment temperatures got above a threshold, a bleaching high temperature threshold, we would act,” said Diego Lirman, an associate professor of marine biology at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School.

But Montoya and his team are keeping their corals in the ocean — just a little farther north — limiting the stress from the relocation.

It’s also a chance to observe how these corals do in the Elbow nursery and compare how they do with their genetic equals in Tavernier.

“That’s the opportunity that this new elbow nursery brings to us to better understand how environmental conditions play in coral health condition,” Montoya said.

For now, the ocean temperatures in the Keys have held steady, slightly below the bleaching threshold in the Coral Restoration Foundation’s nurseries.

“It’s a proactive measure. It wasn’t actually triggered because we saw something happening on a reef or in our nursery. We just wanted to do it before, you know, the storm comes,” Montoya said.

“We learn from the past, that not all eggs should be in the same basket,” Montoya said.

Montoya added that the relocated corals will stay in the Elbow nursery and not be moved back later, ensuring genetic redundancy.

For now, they have only moved corals from their Tavernier nursery while they monitor the ocean temperatures.

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