Victories in war against Crown of Thorns

Thursday March 26 2015, 5:15pm

DIE, HELLSPAWN: Divers lethally inject Crown of Thorns starfish, which occur in huge numbers and are eating the Great Barrier Reef alive.

Marine protection agencies are claiming new victories in the war against the coral-eating Crown of Thorns Starfish (COTS) after thousands of the creatures were killed by an elite team of divers at a reef near Innisfail.

More than 2,500 specimens of the spikey starfish were taken out by a team from the Association of Marine Park Tourism Operators (AMPTO) at Cayley Reef, off the coast of Innisfail, after a member of the public reported an infestation to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA).

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Crown of Thorns Starfish are considered one of the biggest threats to the health of the Great Barrier Reef and the $5.2 billion tourism industry it supports.

Terror from the deep: The hideous Crown of Thorns Starfish looks like it was designed by a special-effects team to scare children.

Each starfish is armoured with poisonous spikes, can regenerate lost limbs, grow to the size of a dinner plate and can eat up to six square metres of coral year by extruding their stomachs out of their bodies and dissolving their prey alive.

Females release over 100 million eggs with each spawning - normally the vast majority die before reaching adulthood but nutrient-rich water running off coastal farms helps a higher than usual amount survive, resulting in massive outbreaks in the hundreds of thousands.

In the last ten years, Crown of Thorns have been responsible for an estimated three quarters of all coral loss on a Great Barrier Reef that is already facing a host of other health threats.

AMPTO CEO Col McKenzie said that the public and tourism operators were the eyes and ears for teams targeting Crown of Thorns Starfish, who terminate them with extreme predjuice using injections of a specially-formulated poison formulated at James Cook University.

“We can’t do much about the starfish unless we know where the big infestations are,” Mr McKenzie said.

“If someone spots a group of Crown of Thorns, they can let us know and we can get out there and do something about it,” he said.

GBRMPA has released an app titled ‘Eyes on The Reef’ which allows users to report sightings of Crown of Thorns and other marine life quickly and easily.

Right now the focus on Crown of Starfish is on protecting key reefs, particularly those used as dive sites by tourism operators out of Cairns and Port Douglas.

Col said the war against Crown of Thorns was once thought to be unwinnable but the combination of new technology and public involvement means there is hope in sight for those trying to stop this underwater menace.

“So far we’ve taken out more than 350,000 of the buggers,” he said.

“They might produce hundreds of millions of eggs each, only a small percentage survive and we’re working on targeting them before they reach breeding age.

“If you’d asked me a year ago ‘can we actually do this’ I’d have probably said no - but with the advent of the new one-shot injector guns and more public information, it is possible to control Crown of Thorns.”