Underwater Camera Offers Live View of Miami Coral Reef
An underwater camera has showcased the incredible corals and sea life that have developed around the human-made shorelines of Miami nonstop for the last five years.
In February 2020, Colin Foord and Jared McKay, co-founders of Coral Morphlogic, strategically installed an underwater live stream camera at a coral reef along the human-made shoreline at the east end of Miami’s port.
The pair’s Coral City Camera became the world’s first webcam to stream live from Miami’s urban reef and soon revealed that the area was full of sea life.
For the last five years, the underwater camera has provided a continuous fish-eye view on YouTube into the extraordinary diversity of marine life that lives below the waterline in Miami to a worldwide audience.
“We’ve seen over 185 species of fish,” Foord told Local 10 News back in 2023. “We see manatees almost every single day, lemon sharks every day. We see sea birds, we’ve seen loons, we’ve seen sea turtles, we’ve seen the octopus, squid.”
“Five different species of brain corals. We’ve got now Elkhorn and Staghorn Coral. Pretty much just about all the species that you find offshore have been able to pioneer here.”
Dolphins as well as at least a dozen different species of sharks and rays and 20 different species of stony corals have been witnessed on the Coral City Camera’s livestream since 2020.
How The Coral City Camera Works
According to a recent report by NPR, marine biologist Foord takes care of the Coral City Camera every week. He reaches it from a small piece of land in Miami’s port. On the way, he drives past cruise ships and big cranes moving containers. The camera is placed in about nine feet of water, just off the coast across from Miami Beach.
Foord runs the Coral City Camera from a lab and warehouse a few miles away. He uses a computer to control the camera and changes its view a few times a day. He describes the livestream as a “free-range aquarium.”
Some volunteers help manage the live chat and point out when animals like squid or manatees appear. Foord says that people who watch often start to recognize certain sea creatures he calls “the regulars.”
“We have Lisa, the lemon shark who has this Mona Lisa smile,” Foord tells NPR. “You begin to recognize that they really do live here. It’s their neighborhood.”
The Coral City Camera has shown both viewers and scientists that human-made structures — like the boulder-covered shorelines at Miami’s port — can give struggling sea creatures a safe place to live, even in busy city areas. These spots also make it easier for scientists to do research.
NPR reports that the Coral City Camera has also shown the resilience of corals and their ability to survive and grow in busy port cities like Miami, Singapore, and Sydney. Foord says this became clear two years ago when ocean temperatures hit record highs, causing coral bleaching and death around the world.
Foord took daily screenshots from the Coral City Camera and put together what he believes is the longest underwater time-lapse video (see Instagram video above). It shows some corals dying over time, but also how others were able to recover and grow back.
“2023 was an absolutely dreadful year,” Foord tells the news outlet. “We watched corals all up and down the Florida reef tract bleaching and dying. And yet for the most part, the corals living at the port of Miami around the Coral City camera didn’t even bleach.”
The live feed from Coral City Camera can be watched on YouTube.
