Giant triton breeding programme

[DesertRhino150]

The Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) has begun a breeding programme for the giant triton or Pacific triton sea snail; there are currently eight adults in captivity collected over a period of two years that have produced over 100,000 larvae.

The purpose of the programme is to hopefully breed giant tritons in sufficient number to be released onto the Great Barrier Reef to prey on crown-of-thorns starfish which are proliferating and are responsible for the loss of nearly a quarter of the coral growing along the Barrier Reef over the past 27 years.

https://phys.org/news/2017-09-giant-sea-snail-barrier-reef.html

 

[Kifaru Bwana]

This sounds like another potential disaster in the making: remember that invasive species introduced on land and then the new predators introduced to combat these and then going for ... bringing more ecosystem mayhem and (possible) extinctions of other native species. Thankfully, it seems the scientists are at least aware of the potential undesirable impacts and will study these prior to any releases.

Having almost disappeared from the GBR it seems that on its own a breed and eventual release program for tritons would not necessarily be a bad thing.

Just I wonder whether it would not be the wiser to actually start to confront the affluents and pollution being dumped on the GBR to be reduced too .... which are the prime drivers of its ecosystem destruction and the consequent proliferation of CoT starfish.

 

[Chlidonias]

This sounds like another potential disaster in the making: remember that invasive species introduced on land and then the new predators introduced to combat these and then going for ... bringing more ecosystem mayhem and (possible) extinctions of other native species. Thankfully, it seems the scientists are at least aware of the potential undesirable impacts and will study these prior to any releases.

The tritons are not a foreign invasive species though - they are native to the area. The reason they are so rare now is due to human collection.

 

[Hix]

to actually start to confront the affluents and pollution being dumped on the GBR

I think you mean effluent. 'Affluent' means something completely different.



Hix