Parts of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef are under attack from a major infestation of coral-eating starfish that are endangering the world’s largest living organism, environmental protection officials said on Wednesday.
Teams of divers are battling outbreaks of the Crown of Thorns starfish at two locations along the 2 000-kilometre reef off eastern Australia, and experts expect the situation to worsen next year.
”I’m actually very concerned that the reef as we know it is going to cease to exist over the next 10-15 years,” said Col McKenzie, a Great Barrier Reef starfish-control officer.
McKenzie said researchers believe that when a severe drought affecting eastern Australia breaks, as expected in March or April, the rains will wash large amounts of parched but nutrient-rich soil into the reef area, providing a food bonanza for the starfish.
”There’s going to be a very high nutrient load, meaning more Crown of Thorns will survive than normal because there’ll be more food for them,” McKenzie said.
Divers patrolling the reefs are already seeing lots of juvenile Crown of Thorns.
”That would indicate to us that we’re going to have some fairly severe outbreaks next year,” he said.
Current infestations are attacking coral in the central reef near the city of Townsville, and to the south around the Whitsunday Islands, while coral cover was down to five percent in reef areas around Cairns to the north, McKenzie said.
While coral reefs take 12-15 years to grow back after being damaged, starfish outbreaks in some cases are occurring every three years.
”When that happens, the reef doesn’t get a chance to regenerate,” he said.
”There are a lot of areas that have absolutely zero tourism and zero ecological value because they’ve just simply been destroyed, and I think we’ll see a lot of the reef cop the same hiding.”
The Great Barrier Reef, covering more than 345 000 square kilometers, is considered the world’s largest living organism and one of Australia’s main tourist attractions.
Scientists say the reef is already suffering stress from record-high ocean temperatures and a new coral-killing disease labelled white syndrome, which was first identified in 1993 and has been spreading rapidly.
Crown of Thorns starfish live on coral reefs in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. They measure 25-80 centimetres in diameter and are covered with sharp spines. – Sapa-AFP