Scuba Diver Australasia Magazine + ALERTDIVER Issue 07/2015 | Page 8

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briefing

Image © David Fleetham/Nature Picture Library

WORDS
OF WISDOM

Things are dire for
the leatherbacks in the
Pacific right now; we
need to do everything
at once.
TODD STEINER
Founder and Executive
Director of Turtle Island
Restoration Network

SCIENCE

SCENT OF A SNAIL

The human race is not alone in its unconscious
quest to deplete the ocean of all coral. Giving
us Homo sapiens a run for our money is the
crown-of-thorns starfish (COTs). Responsible
for the exhaustion of a large percentage of the
coral cover on the already-stressed Great Barrier
Reef (GBR) over the last 30 years, the starfish is a
growing threat.
However, researchers have discovered that
a chemical produced by the giant triton shell
repels the voracious starfish, and are now hailing