The japanese will determine the next step in the upcoming days for now team. Sky is safe stain at the polish embassy in tokyo. Poland has granted her humanitarian visa. And she has plans to go there in the coming days. Corals have been on the decline around the globe for decades so much that almost two dozen species have been added to the endangered species list since two thousand six. Nancy klinger from wwl. Rn in south florida tells us that taking a closer look at one especially rare kind of coral came just in time pillar coral was facing the same issues as the rest of the florida reef tracked the impact of global warming diseases and overfishing with an extra challenge. Most corals are hermaphrodites meaning when they spawn. They released both eggs and sperm not pillar coral for them. It's one or the other. So when there are fewer individuals it's exponentially harder for them to reproduce mothers. The fathers are essentially becoming farther and farther apart. They're separated by greater and greater distances. So the mother may never find the father during spawning egg may never meet sperm. And babies don't get made kerry. Mcneil is the senior scientist at the florida aquarium. Near tampa about five years ago the aquarium started collecting and preserving pillar coral keeping in tanks. When it looked like they were in serious danger in the wild out on the reef off the florida keys. We really thought you know in two thousand sixteen that this is really just a gene banking project you know that we were just gonna take fragments of these corals on keep them alive and keep them healthy and see what the future held for the species. Light coral reefs around the world. The florida reef has been in sharp decline. Global warming is one 'cause then a new disease tore through the hard corals in south florida including pillar coral preserving them in captivity of a became even more important. Meanwhile scientists at the florida aquarium heard about a london aquarium where they had gotten coral to spawn. The florida aquarium followed the same methods. They programmed a computer to mimic natural conditions on the reef as much as possible. The gradual increase in water temperature through the summer the changing times of sunrise and sunset. We kind of say our state. They're living in the ocean and you are go And for all they know and all the signals that they're getting That's where they are located. Even though they're actually in apollo beach florida and an aquarium the aquarium staff watch for signs that pillar coral or spawning then they collect the gates and mix them together one in you and then the eggs start to divide usually within an hour of them getting fertilized so it's Really rushed and chaotic process. It only happens once a year. And then after it's all done and we get the baby's gonna settled into our aquarium systems and then we kind of start the clock all over again and and for next year. So you're sort of doing mass. Ivf exactly exactly. The aquarium got their pillar coral to spawn just in time karen neely is a coral ecologist at nova southeastern university. She's been serving pillar coral since two thousand thirteen and collecting eggs and sperm during the annual spawn in august last year that we were able to do pillar corresponding in the wild was the first year that they were able to do it in the lab. And i i really do think that that's the future for this species neely's work on pillar coral started because it was added to the endangered species list in two thousand fourteen this year. She was the lead author on a paper. Finding that pillar coral are functionally extinct on the florida reef. She and her fellow researchers watched as coral colonies. They had given nicknames to undocumented over the years disappeared in. Oh you develop a personal connection with.