Thousands of crown-of-thorns starfish are understood to be eating their way through coral in a major outbreak at the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef, as authorities consider how to tackle the problem.
The outbreak on the Swain Reefs off Yeppoon was discovered last year, but the area is remote and hostile, hampering efforts to control the spread of the coral-killing marine animal.
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) has confirmed it has been working out how to deal with the outbreak since last year.
The starfish is native to the reef but when numbers explode, the results can be devastating, as thousands of the creatures munch their way through the coral.
Typically scientists link outbreaks of the crown-of-thorns starfish to spikes in ocean nutrients caused by coastal and agricultural run-off into the ocean.
For that reason outbreaks are usually further north and closer to the coast, but the Swain Reefs are a long way offshore and on the southern end of the reef, so it is not known what caused the outbreak.
The crown-of-thorns outbreak puts more strain on a Great Barrier Reef system that has seen two consecutive years of mass coral bleaching from ocean warming.
An international study, published today in the prestigious Science journal, warned that the window of time for saving the world's reefs from coral bleaching was closing.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-05/great-barrier-reef-crown-of-thorns-starfis...