Great Barrier Reef Foundation Expands Toolkit to Combat Crown

Crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) are a significant threat to our Great Barrier Reef. While they’re a native species, they eat large quantities of corals and can cause irreparable damage to our Reef if left unchecked. Nocturnal by nature, they’re difficult to detect, so the COTS Control Innovation Program is developing new tools and technology to help find and outsmart these coral predators.

In a huge collaborative effort that brought together 24 scientists, reef managers, and COTS Control crews from seven organisations, we spent 11 days at sea testing a range of new detection methods. These tools are being designed to help hunt down COTS, track their spread and guide control teams to COTS hotspots.

The new COTS detection tools put to the test were:

The team was based on two large vessels provided in-kind to the project by Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service and Pacific Marine Group. The data collected is now being analysed and the new tools will form part of the suite of technology available to help predict, detect and respond to COTS outbreaks so we can better protect corals on the Reef.

This research was conducted as part of the COTS Control Innovation Program, in collaboration with the Australian Institute of Marine Science, James Cook University, CSIRO, Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Queensland Parks and Wildlife Services and Pacific Marine Group.