“Without intervention over the last two decades, the model shows that grouper and emperor populations on the Great Barrier Reef would also have consistently declined under increasing fishing pressure.”
The research also considered the benefits of direct COTS management on the Great Barrier Reef, which has evolved from manual removal of starfish at individual reef sites in the 1980s, to intensive culling at tourism sites, to the current COTS control program delivered by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.
Multiple vessels are deployed to more than 200 prioritised reefs across the Reef every year, with mounting evidence of the program’s effectiveness, CSIRO said.