Crown-of-thorns Starfish
brian_lassig at ccmail.gbrmpa.gov.au
brian_lassig at ccmail.gbrmpa.gov.au
Fri Jun 23 16:40:10 UTC 1995
In the last 18 months I have received reports of increasing
crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) numbers on quite a few Indo-Pacific
reefs from South Africa, Red Sea, Cocos (Keelings), northern Great
Barrier Reef, Malaysia, Indonesia, Fiji, Phillipines, Solomons and
Samoa. Most of the reports are qualitative, but a number of the
population increases are sufficiently large to cause local concern and
warrant control efforts by managers and tourism operators.
The apparent synchrony of these population increases across oceanic
scales is interesting in terms of outbreak causality. More detailed
quantitative information on the current (and historical) status of
COTS populations in the Indo-Pacific region would be extremely useful.
Any such information gratefully received.
Brian Lassig
COTS Program Coordinator, GBRMPA
brianl at gbrmpa.gov.au
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