I recently read Gordon Chaplin's article A Return to the Reefs at Smithsonian.com. In it, the author tells of his return to the coral reefs he explored as a child growing up in the Bahamas and describes the many differences in reef life he found, fifty years on.

Gordon Chaplin started swimming in and exploring the waters around his island home at the age of 5. But his explorations were more than the wanderings of a child. He spent many hours helping his father, Charles C.G. Chaplin, collect and study fish for a book documenting the area's fishes. The book, Fishes of the Bahamas and Adjacent Tropical Waters, was first published in 1968 and to this day remains a classic text on the fishes of the Bahamas.

Gordon Chaplin's return to the reefs he explored fifty years ago offers a unique insight into how the reefs of the Bahamas have changed over recent decades. Sadly, the changes he reports are in most cases grim. Gordon Chaplin finds waters, once crystal clear, now dull and polluted. He finds fewer fish and dying corals. Some reefs have died completely and Chaplin fails to find some of the fish species he studied as a youth. His account paints a disturbing picture of the direction coral reefs are heading in the Bahamas. The account mirrors the wider, global trend taking place in reefs around the world.

Find out more: A Return to the Reefs (Smithsonian)

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