Crown of Thorns: Ideas about its eradication?

[speckled trout]

Aren't humans part of nature? Other animals also cause changes to their environments. And yes, we are at the top of the pile! Thank goodness, too.

I'm not saying we shouldn't try to be responsible for our actions, especially those that impact large amounts of our environment. It's just that I get a little tired of some people who don't think that humans should do anything to anything. Every other organism on Earth affects other organisms.

 

[Newreeflady]

So, you agree we have done our damage to this ecosystem and that the COT population problem is likely a byproduct of our actions, correct? You just don't think we should bother to correct our actions, because we're at the "top of the pile" and that constitues what in your eyes is doing something to something. Is this your stance?

Honestly, I get a little tired of people coming into this forum with the attitude of "why bother", it's nature, don't touch. Yes, we are a part of evolution, but we have minds and if we wanted to we could make the effort to not necessarily leave such a bad impact on every other creature and ecosystem here just be cause we're at the "top of the pile." We were definitely doing "anything to anything" by being passive polluters, so why is it not O.K. to intervene actively?

-A

 

[speckled trout]

Lady, I ain't saying don't bother! I think we should make every effort(within reason) to correct "problems" that we create that have drastic effects on our environment. I love living on this Earth as much as anyone else, probably more.

Some people, however, tend to think that whatever man does is wrong or unnatural. I'm only trying to say that is a bunch of hogwash, because we're part of nature. Does that mean we shouldn't be good stewards of the Earth? Absolutely not. Our ability to reason is what separates us from the rest of the animals and organisms on this planet, I think we should use it.

Predators are on the this Earth for a reason. They keep other populations in check, it's what they do. Do we know for certain that COT populations haven't become more populated in the past? Usually these things have a way of balancing out and a rapidly expanding population experiences a major crash after a population boom.

Also, cycles are natural parts of what happens here on Earth, as well. The average temperature on this planet, for instance, has risen and dropped substantial amounts many times throughout its history. It's a natural occurence. Global warming is not a documented fact. Many scientists don't adhere to this theory. The weather is cyclic as well as many other things that happen on our Earth.

 

[logans_daddy]

speckeled trout...i dont even know where to begin. global warming is not a fact? i guess ozone depletion is not a fact? i guess greenhouse gases are a figment of everyones imagination?

you are absolutely right about temperatures varying historically due to environmental changes(impacts, geological disturbances, or what have you) but this is a far cry from what we have today. we are doing irrepairable damage to our planet everyday and we do it knowingly. we can no longer claim ignorance. we dont change because it is not cost effective for corporate america. it is much easier to spend money on propaganda(i.e., your source for global warming not being a fact!) than long term solutions.

your logic about us being top predator hurts my head to even follow. would you like to know an antonym for natural? how about man-made. have you looked at a periodic table lately? we arent discovering things anymore we are creating them. im all for technology...heck...i even majored in physics in college for two years....but lets take a little responsibility. when we are developing new technologies...lets spend less time worrying about the profit margin and more time worring about how thetechnology might adversely affect our planet.

 

[speckled trout]

People are a part of nature. What we do, is natural. Should we do whatever we want regardless of the consequenses, no. Beyond these arguments, I'm done.

And no, Global warming is not a documented fact. The water isn't becoming deeper along the coast. Communities located along shorelines aren't being flooded. I know, I live right on the water. In fact, the tide has been the lowest this Winter in recorded history. If Global Warming were indeed occurring like some scientists suggest, wouldn't their other predictions becoming true like coastal flooding? It ain't happening.

By the way, Logans daddy, you haven't been following my logic, because I never said anything about Top predator. Did you think I was talking about humans when I referred to predators. I was talking about the COT playing its role in the environment. Who are we to suggest that it is our duty to eradicate an entire species because we happen to love coral? There would be far reaching consequenses to other species. We don't understand the complex relationships that some organisms surely have with this species!

I won't bother and post anymore under this topic, so don't worry, I'm finished. I've got more important things to do like go fishing. Bye-bye now.

 

[logans_daddy]

hmmmm....i guess a reply is pointless

however...i would like to ask a rhetorical question....global warming means costal flooding?

i thought large scale flooding were worse case scenario projections? i also thought that rising water levels are scientific fact just like continental drifting? but its all sort of subjective on the coast because either the coastlines are constantly changing(erosion) or we maintian them through artifical structures and/or means. so unless your using gps, eliminating all environemnetal factors, and taking long term measurements....i dont think having the lowest tide has much to do with water levels.

here is a question i pose to anyone out of my own curiosity(not based in fact in anyway)...does the weather seem to be drastically different in just the short time you have been alive?

im not quite 30 and i live in the northeast. it seems that everytime i watch the weather and they compare out temps today to those of history....the majority of historical high/lows seem to have happened in my lifetime. it could be my imagination but weather patterns seem to become more extreme and more inconsitent with every passing year.

shawn:bum:

 

[Newreeflady]

haha. You know, I would do a whole work up on this, but this thread really isn't about global warming (which of course, i'm sure most of the educated population agrees is not a figment of our imagination as the Bush goonies would have us believe.)

I will restate, though, that my point wasn't to wipe out any species, but to find where the sudden problem with their population increase has come from, and, if it is of human consequence, try to work toward reversing it and bringing the population levels back to normal. The thread title was truly a poor choice on my part, but really, we've already gone over this.

I think, though, that this thread seems to have become rather hostile, sadly. I thought this was something that those who love nature could come together to talk about like adults, but some people open the thread with the intention of flaming.

-A

 

[logans_daddy]

i think your right. i think some people are reacting to the title and are just firing off without rading the thread, or anything else relevant for that matter.

 

[rustybucket145]

All you have to do to eradicate the Crown Of Thorns Starfish is to figure out a way for humans to eat it. Call it a delicacy, serve it in Fine Dining restaurants and it will be on the endangered species list within 5 years. Mmmmmmm.... Crunchy!

 

[rustybucket145]

Or call it 'RARE' and sell it on ebay!

 

[Newreeflady]

hah! That is SO true!

-A

 

[Perureef]

just to know, why do they inject the starfish with stuff? why dont they manually remove the animals and let them dry in the sun?

 

[Newreeflady]

I think they are rather large, it may be difficult to collect thousands a day, no?

-A

 

[rustybucket145]

give them to the LFS's they will figure out a way to sell them.

 

[MCsaxmaster]

A few things:

1. No one knows why there have been population explosions over the last few decades. It seems that this is not, I repeat not, unprecedented in the historic record. However, it does appear that the frequency of these blooms is unprecedented, at least in the recent past. Many hypothesis have been offered but there isn't a concensus yet. It may be a combination of factors. The one thing that is generally agreed upon is that some human activity or group of activities has increased the frequency of blooms.

2. Of course we shouldn't wipe them out. Perhaps controlling their population would be prudent, but wipe them out? What if it turns out that a massive COT outbreak every millenium or so is necessary to keep reefs diverse and that by killing them we have quite literally doomed coral reefs as we know them? Destroying a species is never, never, never an option.

3. Sure we can argue that humans are a part of nature and that what we do is natural to escape responsibility, but what does that matter? We are the one species that has ever existed that can completely transform its environment and so-doing jeopardize its own existence. To be quite blunt, we do not avoid damaging coral reefs because human activities are in any way unnatural, we do it because we benefit from the fact that reefs exist. Any environmental damage whatsoever lowers our standard of living. Ultimately the existence of civilization and economics is solely to raise the standard of living of the participants.

I mean, if we're going to argue that, it is perfectly natural to go club some woman and drag her to my cave (though cave people didn't really live in caves...you get the point). Then I'll skuttle off and kill some other group of folks, since I've got better weapons, and take their land. Well, I'll probably keep the women around... Sure, I could do these things, but I don't because I think they're wrong and our society has agreed they're wrong. If I try to do them I will ultimately be caught and punished. Aren't we as rational beings above our basest interests?

cj

 

[MCary]

Observations have been made that the largest blooms of COT happen close to the mouths of run-off, rivers and streams.

It has been observed that there is agricultural activities upstream.

Nice observations, sounds like a good start to a hypothesis. Now they need to makes some predictions and begin controlled experiments. But until then, temper your guilt. Its not your fault you were born human.

I don't understand the passion behind people who sign on politcally and personally to scientific research. There seems to be one common thread. American white man guilt. I do understand those who do not believe in , for example global warming. These people are called skeptics. Something we all should be. They say, I'm no sucker, prove what you are saying. And I kind of understand the people who follow this subject closely and have formed an opinion on its validity. But can the majority of you that believe in global warming answer these questions:

1. Who was the first scientist to publish a paper on global warming?
2. What was the paper title?
3. Where was the first computer model of global warming ran?
4. What was the first thing you heard about global warming?
5. Who said it?
6. Do you know or respect them?
7. What personal criteria do you have for believing something or someone?
8. If you don't know the answers to these questions, why aren't you skeptical?

Mike

 

[SDguy]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7177216#post7177216 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by MCary
Observations have been made that the largest blooms of COT happen close to the mouths of run-off, rivers and streams.

It has been observed that there is agricultural activities upstream.

Nice observations, sounds like a good start to a hypothesis. Now they need to makes some predictions and begin controlled experiments.
Mike

Actually in the show they explained the lab experiments they did, showing the higher survival rates of COT larvae in algae rich water. It was pretty interesting.

 

[MCsaxmaster]

I don't understand the passion behind people who sign on politcally and personally to scientific research. There seems to be one common thread. American white man guilt.

Ok???

I do understand those who do not believe in , for example global warming. These people are called skeptics. Something we all should be.

Skeptics are those that rightly ask for proof as to the validity of an argument. IME, folks that don't believe in anthropogenic global warming fall into one of two camps: 1. folks that are uniformed, 2. people that have a vested interest in not believing it's true (e.g. oil industry). If a person examines the evidence on global warming they cannot possibly come to the conclusion that it is not happening or that it is not forced by anthropogenic influence (primarly through burning fossil fuels). The evidence is overwhelming. It would be like arguing that cigarrettes aren't addictive, or they don't cause cancer, or that the sun is actually made of orange marmelade. Folks that don't believe global warming is happening, or don't believe that humans are the primary cause by-and-large are not skeptics, they're ignorant of the evidence. They're uninformed. Forgive me for saying it, but perhaps it would be best that those uninformed on a subject not speak too loudly.

1. Who was the first scientist to publish a paper on global warming?

Svante Arrhenius in 1896.

2. What was the paper title?

Who cares?

3. Where was the first computer model of global warming ran?

I think Phillips was at Princeton when he developed GCM models. But, who cares?

4. What was the first thing you heard about global warming?

Beats me.

5. Who said it?

Not a clue.

6. Do you know or respect them?

n/a

7. What personal criteria do you have for believing something or someone?

Far too broad a question to answer adequately. My criteria for believing a discovery published a scientific journal is very different from my criteria for believing that my sister's soccer team won.

8. If you don't know the answers to these questions, why aren't you skeptical?

I'm extremely skeptical and question everything. I'd have to be daft to question anthropogenic global warming though (why did this topic ever come up btw?) because the evidence for it is overwhelming.

Best,

cj

 

[lovethereefer]

ok back to the COT. this is my thought processes behind having a lot of biology education. Nobody seems to be thinking of it this way--maybe because it is scary. When the CoT have reached an unsustainable level then they will die of starvation. True they will have to eat most of the reef for that to happen but we all know how fast it will grow back. The CoT are acting more as an evolutionary catalyst than most of us want to believe. All those slow growing corals will be eaten and replaced with hardier corals and through a few breeding cycles with cross fertilization we will have hundreds if not thousands of new species of corals. The reef will survive even though man has put a hurt on it.

 

[MCsaxmaster]

When the CoT have reached an unsustainable level then they will die of starvation. True they will have to eat most of the reef for that to happen but we all know how fast it will grow back.

Sure, they'll die when they've removed 90-99% of the live coral coverage, or at least has been the case in the blooms observed. Unfortunately, at the rate the blooms are happening now there is not nearly enough time for the reef to recover from one bloom to the next.

The CoT are acting more as an evolutionary catalyst than most of us want to believe. All those slow growing corals will be eaten and replaced with hardier corals and through a few breeding cycles with cross fertilization we will have hundreds if not thousands of new species of corals.

Acroporids are just about the only corals that grow fast enough to reach reproductive age between blooms. Even some of them can't. Since there are ca. 800 species of hermatypic coral and some of the genera date to more than 25 million years ago, I'm not sure it is a good idea to rely on speciation to replace extinct corals. Besides, the question is not whether these species of coral will go extinct, they most likely won't as a result, the question is will there be a healthy reef in these places in a year, 5 years, 10 years, and beyond. Without intervention the answer is probably no.

The reef will survive even though man has put a hurt on it.

Sure, reefs are robust geologically, but they also show cessation of building. The last time lasted ca. 5 million years. I have no doubt 5 million years from now there will be coral reefs, but that isn't the question that concerns me. What concerns me is whether there will be reefs (healthy ones) a year, 10 years, 50 years from now. That's what is an important thing to answer. Without intervention, the answer is no.

cj