(17-06-10)  The Malay island Layang Layang, one of the favourite destinations for divers in the China Sea, is losing its corals alarmingly. We can see the effects of a devastating invasion of a starfish that is out of demographic control.

    Led by human being, Nature destroys itself. In this case, it is the broken of natural balance of a species in the food chain. The rule “fig fish eats small one” is over. The problem is that “the big fish” is no longer food for another one because the only predator that eats it is endangered due to the fact that the “most intelligent (?) being, human being, is killing it.

    Uncontrolled trade has caused overfishing and, almost, the end of a species in the Malay paradise in Layang Layang. Giant triton (Charonia tritonis) is wanted by unscrupulous collectors and this demand has decimated the population of the island and its surroundings. And what these giant shells prefer a particular starfish for food…

    The immediate consequence of the disappearance of these shells has been the dazzling proliferation of starfish (Acanthaster planci) colonies. It was an exotic starfish integrated in a more exotic paradise, and now it is the nightmare that leaves behind a trail of death.

    This is not the first time this happens. For example, in the Great Barrier Reef, in the Red Sea and in Palau, they started actions to eliminate or control, at least, the overpopulation of a starfish that destroyed coral, and which has a high reproductive potential also.

THEY HAVE TO BE CAUGHT ONE BY ONE

    Different methods have been used to make it disappear, from darts with venom to electric shock. But the only thing that works is to catch them one by one out of water. Their incredible high reproductive potential and regeneration are awesome, and it is not enough cutting them in half. The most effective thing is spear them with a sharpen stick and burn them or put them in a drying place.

    This huge thorn star can absorb coral lives after a digestive process. Slowly, while it moves on the coral, leaves a trail of death behind. It lives just to eat coral essence and breed. It does not need to defense against its main predator, none is interested enough to balance the demographic balance, not even human being.

    The most intelligent being on Earth is not so in Layang Layang. There, they think that hiding what is happening is the best thing to do, for commercial purposes at least. But when Layang Layang authorities admit that their reefs are dying it will be late to take any measure, because if they live on something it is the beauty of their sea bottoms. Visitors won’t travel thousand kilometres to see dead reefs, or what is left...

    We are seeing one of the many imbalances caused by human being, who can alter the ecosystem so much that most of the species living in it could disappear.

    If the extremely high reproductive potential of the starfish we add the speed of destroying corals, and, in chain, all life systems that depend on it, the result will be a reef skeleton destroyed by ocean strengths.

    There is the question about what will happen when this island has no longer the protection of reefs from ocean. The answer is easy: Layang Layang coastline will disappear among the waves.

 

Text and pictures: Jorge Keller / Deep Blue-Vídeo