Experts call for government help over toxic algal bloom, as Watt visits SA
Minister Murray Watt will be the first federal government representative to see the devastation after years of 'ignored' warnings from scientists about the crisis, they call an underwater bushfire.
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ABC News
4 hours ago
- ABC News
Gardeners recruited to help save critically endangered Tumut grevillea
Ecologists have enlisted dozens of southern New South Wales residents to help repopulate a critically endangered blossoming shrub. The Tumut grevillea has fewer than 1,000 plants left in the wild and is only found in a 6-kilometre stretch of land alongside the Goobarragandra River, in the Snowy Mountains. As part of the NSW Department of Climate Change, Environment, Energy and Water's (DCCEEW) Saving Our Species program, the organisation partnered with Riverina Local Land Services (LLS) to deliver a series of educational workshops on the native shrub. More than 45 people attended, including adults and children from Tumut and surrounding areas, and were given cuttings and taught propagation techniques to try to grow it at home. LLS senior officer Cherie White said she hoped the workshops inspired a new generation of people to save the plant. "It's really important to engage with the local community and watch them be excited about the grevillea and its recovery," she said. The native shrub is also connected to women's business in First Nations culture, as it is found around culturally significant sites to the Wiradjuri and Walgalu people. As part of regeneration efforts, the DCCEEW and LLS enlisted the help of First Nations people from the Brungle Tumut Local Aboriginal Land Council and the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service to plant 60 seedlings along the Goobarragandra River. DCCEEW threatened species officer David Hunter, who also led the workshops, said the plant was a "spectacular shrub in bloom". "It has these incredible purple toothbrush-shaped flowers that cover the plant," he said. Dr Hunter said land modification after colonisation, such as land clearing, had impacted the plant's numbers. "Undoubtedly, prior to European settlement, the Tumut grevillea would have had a much broader range," he said. "As of the late 1990s, there were about 300 adult plants remaining in the wild but over time has declined to fewer than 60 in the wild." Dr Hunter said grazing by introduced species, domestic stock and feral animals — particularly deer — had also caused numbers to dwindle. Ms White said the Tumut grevillea was difficult to protect, because it was challenging to gather seeds and propagate. To collect the seeds without them being eaten by opportunistic birds, LLS staff placed bags over the plants while the seed ripened. "It ripens, it drops off into the bag, and it doesn't get eaten by the parrots," she said. Dr Hunter said he hoped residents would have success propagating the plant and help restore its population. "It's an extremely special plant," he said.
ABC News
5 hours ago
- ABC News
As South Australia deals with its algal bloom, California is dealing with another
A dead sea lion is discovered on one end of the coast, and not far away an entire pod of long-beaked common dolphins lay stranded. It is becoming a familiar scene for those living along the coast of Southern California. And much like in South Australia, where thousands of dead sea creatures have washed ashore since March, a harmful algal bloom is to blame. Warning: This story contains content that some readers may find distressing. In California, this is the fourth consecutive year of death and destruction along the coastline. There have been scores of marine mammals and sea birds injured and killed, with US rescuers dealing with "by far historically the largest mass stranding event" relating to algal blooms. In South Australia, the Karenia mikimotoi bloom, kills fish and other sea creatures by impacting their gills, causing them to drown. In the US, authorities have been dealing with different types of algae, including one that produces domoic acid which can cause mammals like sea lions to experience seizures, behave aggressively or die. The Pacific Marine Mammal Center (PMMC) said the harmful algal bloom on the Southern California coast had significantly impacted sea lion and common dolphin populations and had killed two humpback whales and a minke whale. "In 2025, we've experienced the worst domoic acid algae bloom that we've ever experienced in Southern California history," Alissa Deming, PMMC vice president of Conservation, Medicine and Science told ABC News. Dr Deming said the PMMC hospital had taken in hundreds of sick mammals, which had been "physically demanding and very emotionally taxing" on staff and volunteers trying to help while protecting the public from aggressive animals. "A number of the sea lions were also pregnant, and that resulted in reproductive losses of over 85 fetuses born and lost in our hospital as a result of this bloom," she said. The veterinarian said there were likely similar drivers for its bloom to the one happening in South Australia including increasing marine temperatures and more nutrients from cold water upwelling. "By combining the warm sea surface temperatures with increased nutrients, that has resulted in us having a bloom event every year since 2022, with them seemingly becoming larger, longer lasting and covering a lot larger geographic region," Dr Deming said. Investigations are underway if the destructive Los Angeles wildfires in January and the associated run-off have contributed to the bloom. The US National Office for Harmful Algal Blooms said a conservative estimated cost of harmful algal blooms for the the US was about $50 million, but experts say expenses are hard to quantify. A 2024 study estimated losses to tourism-related businesses during the 2018 Florida red tide bloom at $US2.7 billion. Dr Deming said the US government agencies continued to have monitoring and management practices in place to support the commercial seafood industry. "Being able to have good federal and state agencies that can do surveillance to test to ensure seafood is safe for the public, as well as trying to come up with preventative measures or best management practices to prevent blooms, … are really high priority items," she said. "We're happy we have some of those systems in place, but there's absolutely room for improvement I think all around the world to help prevent the conditions that support these really long lasting and devastating blooms." Other algal blooms have also wreaked havoc in other parts of the world. An algae surge choked to death an estimated 40,000 tonnes of salmon in Chile in 2016 while hundreds of elephant deaths in Botswana in 2020 were linked to cyanobacteria, often called blue-green algae in Australia. The scale of each harmful algal bloom event seems to be increasing, professor Gretta Pecl from the University of Tasmania's Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies told the ABC. "If there isn't something done to mitigate, to reduce climate emissions, warming will continue and these kinds of events will be more and more likely," she said. US research biologist at NOAA Fisheries Kathi Lefebvre, who has been studying harmful algal blooms for 25 years, said the blooms were getting worse and reaching areas "where we used to not have problems". "It is turning out to be a major impact of climate change." Authorities in South Australia have linked South Australia's algal bloom to climate change, and state and federal governments have pledged a collective $28 million for a suite of measures to tackle the algal bloom, including more funding for testing. Dr Lefebvre said authorities needed to take action now to mitigate the effects of future blooms. "What's going to happen if these blooms are going to be continuing is that there's going to need to be ways to test for toxins … to protect human health," Dr Lefebvre said. "The more information we have, the better decisions we can make.
News.com.au
20 hours ago
- News.com.au
‘Unprecedented' algae bloom disaster making SA beaches toxic here to stay, experts claim
An 'unprecedented' natural disaster that has killed thousands of marine creatures, sparked orders to stay out of the water, and gutted parts of the local tourism sector has scientists alarmed, with no sign of an end in sight. The Algae bloom parked up just off the coast of South Australia has persistently held its position inside the St Vincent Gulf since it was first officially reported in March, after visitors of the Waitpinga Beach on South Australia's Fleurieu Peninsula began reporting illness. The toxic bloom has killed hundreds of sea creatures, caused illness in humans and sparked orders for swimmers to stay out of affected water. Estimates vary on how many creatures have been killed by the bloom, but it is understood there have been recorded deaths among more than 200 different species of sea life. Even more alarmingly, there doesn't seem to be any respite in sight. Dr Nina Wootton, a Marine Scientist from the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Adelaide, said tracking the outbreak of the Algae bloom was difficult, but it could have something to do with the Murray River flooding in 2022/23. 'Obviously there's a lot of run-off that goes into the Murray, and then this has potentially pushed some of these algae species out into the marine environment, and it's sort of just been sitting there dormant. And then when we see perfect conditions arise, it can then bloom,' she told NewsWire. 'Somehow this species has gotten there, and then we have a range of different environmental factors that have caused this perfect storm of events,' she said. 'When things are hot and still, (the algae) grow, and this species has just boomed because there's been nothing there to break it up naturally.' Although millions of dollars have been committed to clean up and research, Dr Wootton said the cure was ultimately in the hands of mother nature. 'The thing that's so hard is there's not really a solution to get rid of this bloom,' Dr Wootton said. 'The main way we're going to be able to do it is hopefully cross our fingers and toes that we have good weather conditions and we have some strong winter storms over the next couple of months that will break it up and eventually blow it off the coast. That's all we can really hope for now … to get rid of it naturally at least,' she said. 'It could be up to 18 months. Some scientists are predicting that we're going to continue to see deaths of animals for up to 18 months if we don't have these winter storms breaking it up.' University of Adelaide Microbial Ecologist Dr Christopher Keneally said even though 'you can't really see them,' algae blooms can have serious impacts on wildlife, and can even affect humans. 'Algae blooms have a massive impact on fish … they concentrate toxins – especially into shellfish – and cause a lot of damage,' he said. 'It's not as much of a problem for mammals like dolphins and human beings … but people in southern Australia have been noticing that there's a bit of eye irritation and throat and lung irritation that happens when they go out into the water when there's an algae bloom happening.' Dr Keneally stressed while we don't hear about it often, events like this are 'similar to a bushfire or other environmental catastrophes'. 'It can be quite scary when something like this happens, especially when you don't know what to expect … getting people used to the idea of it potentially happening in their own coastal waters is important when it comes to awareness.' 'The rapid mobilisation of Australia's research is going to be really important to forecasting these things and looking at mitigation in the future … we need to take action, or otherwise these things are going to become the new normal.' Shadow Water, Fisheries and Forestry and Emergency Management Minister Ross Cadell spoke to ABC Radio earlier this week about the emotional and economic impacts of algal blooms on local communities. 'You walk along the Ardrossan wharf and see garfish and King George whiting on the ground dying,' he said. 'You talk to the businesses and the Port Vincent gift shop is down (in sales) 15 per cent. 'The Stansbury caravan park, in the 48 hours before I got there, (had) 10-12 cancellations of November holidays because people are fearful of going in the water.' SA Premier Peter Malinauskas announced the Commonwealth government had provided a $14 million care package to South Australia which 'covers industry support, science and research, communications, community support and clean-up'. 'I want to thank the Commonwealth for their contribution … towards this effort,' he said 'We stand ready to deliver additional support if and when it is needed.'
