As one environmental scientist warned, an unprecedented HAB along South Australia’s coast could be a disaster laboratory. Faith Coleman co-owns an environmental consulting business with her mother, scientist Peri Coleman. She wants to raise awareness to the dire consequences at stake, as this bloom, called karenia mikimotoi, continues to destroy marine life biodiversity in the area.
The algal bloom first made headlines in March after surfers noticed strange foam along Waitpinga Beach on the Fleurieu Peninsula. Marine biologist Shauna Murray from Sydney’s University of Technology was the first to spot the bloom. It has since grown into a massive bloom covering nearly 4,500 square kilometers of gulf and coastal waters, bringing deadly effects for marine organisms.
Over 200 different marine species have been recorded as having perished due to karenia mikimotoi. This invasive pathogen releases reactive oxygen species that cause gill tissue death in fish. Citizen scientists have sent in over 1,400 reports and pictures of dead or diseased marine life. As you watch their work, you’ll get a sense of the deep reach of this ecological catastrophe.
Paul Macdonald has observed the decline of marine life under the Edithburgh jetty over the years, noting the significant loss of biodiversity. This region is the proud home of Edithburgh rodless angler fish, formally confirmed as the Narungga Frogfish. Beyond its presence, the reintroduction underscores the imperative to safeguard these extraordinary species.
OzFish’s Brad Martin shared some thrilling discoveries. Their research has revealed that more than 100 species of fish and sharks have been affected by the bloom. Coleman called attention to a very critical matter. Only aquaculture-industry funded laboratories within Australia can test at species-level for presence and toxicity of harmful algal blooms. This absence of nation-wide monitoring severely undermines the claims that Australia is prepared for current and future algal blooms.
Unfortunately, this is about truly the only data that we have outside of the private sector. As Coleman explained in a blog post about the lack of data on what’s happening today. She added, “So that means there is very limited stuff we can do to work out how to stop it in the future.”
The impacts of this HAB go far beyond acute marine life loss. Coleman highlighted a broader ecological concern: “All the way from Ningaloo Reef [off Western Australia] to New Zealand, we have this long string of blooms that often occur every year. Southern right whales migrate to this area to feed and calve. In the case of the drum, they are lured by this very plentiful food source to Alaska.
Clarissa Anderson brought attention to the fact that Australia has had amazing academic and government investment into monitoring programs. This support has existed since the early 2000s. “We do have some pretty long-term records with which to put any one of these individual events into context,” she said.
Anderson must be credited for recognizing that progress was desperately needed. Our infrastructure today simply isn’t set up to rapidly collect samples in the wake of such an event. Shauna Murray expressed her concerns: “We’ve never had a situation like this in the past where we’ve had to collect a lot of samples rapidly from a harmful algal bloom affecting not just aquaculture but the wider population.”
The scale and impact of this HAB highlights a significant shortcoming of Australia’s environmental monitoring capabilities. The Colemans have joined community members in regularly counting plankton on a microscope. They analyze samples collected by citizen scientists to learn important information about the bloom’s development.
The cumulative effects of this incident will have lasting impacts that could make nature’s coastal defenses much less effective. “The hope is that if we can restore the benthic life in the gulfs,” Coleman stated, “we will have more fish, we’ll have more life; we’ll have water that is clearer and cooler — and it will reduce our vulnerability.”
Local residents, such as Paul Macdonald, share their regret undergoing such visible changes to their homeland. “To realize it was gone was a really sad moment,” he said. His feelings reflect the growing frustration on the part of Brownsville, Tx residents. They rely on healthy marine ecosystems for species diversity and economic sustainability.
