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The Florida Keys - a world famous fishing 
and diving destination.

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It s the third largest barrier reef in the 
world.

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It supports, basically, about an annual economy 
of about 6 billion dollars a year.

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But, it also suffers from significant use 
from a regional population on the order of

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about 7 million people in the three-county 
South Florida area.

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As Florida s population has increased, the 
health of its coral reefs which form the

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foundation for the state s large fishing 
industry - has drastically declined.

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With it, so have fish populations.

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Man loves to fish, catches too many fish, 
therefore the numbers go down.

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To better understand how fish populations 
are doing, a team of scientists dives regularly

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to conduct a census of the fish that live 
on the reef.

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The main reason that we re out here counting 
fish is really to try to get some better understanding

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of what s happening with these coral reef 
fish populations, and the best way to do that

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is to put divers in the water and actually 
have them go and count and size the stuff

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that they re seeing.

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To collect this data in remote locations like 
the Dry Tortugas, scientists use a highly

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efficient and streamlined process.

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Go divers Go!

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It s kind of like a paramilitary assault 
on marine resources because we re doing

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on the order, you know, of 100, scientific 
dives a day so the process of having a custom

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ship with a very skilled captain and crew 
with highly-trained divers gives us great

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flexibility and latitude to sample large areas 
accurately, and provide information really

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that no one has been able to capture before.

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What will the divers find?

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Are fish populations recovering in South Florida?