Tourists warned after inflatable pools deployed off popular Aussie beach
An exciting phenomenon is taking place on the Great Barrier Reef and locals and tourists alike have been asked to do just one thing.
Tourists and locals visiting the Great Barrier Reef are being urged to be careful when wading into the water at a popular Aussie tourist spot this week. The warning comes after five inflatable pools were deployed near Hook Island in The Whitsundays on Tuesday.
While they initially appear to be part of a fun activity for travelling families to enjoy — the blue and white floating squares are actually hiding a “very cool” and important purpose. The pools were designed and installed to capture millions of “coral babies” during the annual full moon spawning event expected to take place in October or November.
Coral spawning is when species simultaneously reproduce by releasing bundles of eggs and sperm which will then float to the top of the water in search of a matching mass to fertilise.
The pools, which collected the eggs and sperm on Thursday night, will remain in the cove for about a week as the coral fertilises, Great Barrier Reef Foundation Coral Restoration Director Melissa Rodgers told Yahoo News Australia.
“When they’re ready to settle, we will move to deployment, where we actually then — using a sort-of reverse vacuum cleaner — suck the larvae down onto an appropriate area of the reef where we want the larvae to settle,” she said.
“So usually we’re just leaving it to Mother Nature. These larvae can float on ocean currents and sort of end up anywhere so it’s a real matter of chance of the coral being ready as a larvae to settle and ending up in the right place. The pools really allow us to target baby corals onto the reefs that need it the most.”
To give them their best chance, locals and tourists have been asked to avoid swimming or boating close to the pools due to the larvae’s sensitivity to sunscreen and fuel. Numerous photos of the set-up have been posted in online community groups so people know what to keep an eye out for.
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This is the fourth year the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) and Great Barrier Reef Foundation, along with local tourism operators, have used the seeding technique known as Coral IVF in The Whitsundays.
Scientists estimate that coral in the wild has a one in a million chance of settling in the right place, but with a “helping hand” the odds are one in 10,000, Ms Rodgers said. “Basically what we’re doing is turning science into action for the reef,” she said.
“We’re helping to enhance the resilience of the ecosystem. We know that climate change is a threat to the reef, and that while we work to stabilise climate we really do need to be doing interventions to help enhance the resilience of reefs into the future.”
Given that the Great Barrier Reef was found to have suffered its worst summer on record last year, there’s no better time to utilise the proactive technique. To boost the number of coral babies produced, for the first time this year inflatable larvae pools were also launched in Cairns and Port Douglas, Ms Rodgers said, adding they are training local marine and tourist industries on how Coral IVF works.
“That was really sort of the purpose initially in The Whitsundays — we wanted this technique to be something that didn’t have to be led by researchers or led by scientists.”
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