Speaker 1: I first went to South Australia in mid June, at
Speaker 1: which point, Yeah, the bloom was in full swing.
Speaker 2: The large number of fish and marine life have been
Speaker 2: washing up dead along the shore, including two penguins in
Speaker 2: the past week.
Speaker 3: When dead fish began washing up on South Australian beaches
Speaker 3: earlier this year, doctor Scott Bennett was alarmed. Scott's a
Speaker 3: marin ecologist at the University of Tasmania, and he knew
Speaker 3: that dead fish on shore spelled trouble under the surface.
Speaker 1: Nobody was looking under the water, Nobody had seen impacts
Speaker 1: on the reef, and in discussion with colleagues in South Australia,
Speaker 1: they had really limited capacity to get out.
Speaker 4: There and have a look.
Speaker 3: On a dive in June, Scott came face to face
Speaker 3: with the devastating impact of the largest algal bloom Australia
Speaker 3: has ever seen.
Speaker 5: The full impact still isn't known.
Speaker 3: But some of Australia's rarest and strangest animals could we
Speaker 3: wiped out entirely. I'm Ruby Jones and this is seven
Speaker 3: AM today doctor Scott Bennett on what caused.
Speaker 5: The algal bloom and what it.
Speaker 3: Means for the fate of the ocean. It's Wednesday, August thirteenth.
Speaker 6: Goals are growing for the Commonwealth to declare an enormous
Speaker 6: algal bloom off the coast of South Australia a natural disaster.
Speaker 6: It's been described as an underwater bushfire because of the
Speaker 6: devastating effect on marine life.
Speaker 3: Scott, You've conducted the only underwater survey of the impacts
Speaker 3: of the algal bloom in South Australia, So can you
Speaker 3: tell me about what you saw.
Speaker 1: It was one of the most devastating dive trips I've
Speaker 1: ever been on, to be honest. So you know, we
Speaker 1: do these trips around the country monitoring biodiversity of our
Speaker 1: reefs and when we do them, they're you know, typically
Speaker 1: really enjoyable trips. Obviously we have just these amazing help
Speaker 1: forest ecosystems throughout Southern Australia. Visibility is often really nice.
Speaker 1: You can see a lot of life and diversity on
Speaker 1: these dives, so they're really exciting trips to go on.
Speaker 1: This trip, the whole spect of it was unlike anything
Speaker 1: we normally do.
Speaker 2: Beach goers first sounded the alarm about the micro algal
Speaker 2: bloom back in March, after dead marine life washed up
Speaker 2: along the Flurio Peninsula and surfers reported feeling unwell, you.
Speaker 1: Know, on the first dive. To be honest, kind of
Speaker 1: fulfilled our expectations. We actually couldn't see anything. It was
Speaker 1: just so turbid and stirred up. But we continued on
Speaker 1: and conditions over the day and that week got better.
Speaker 1: But the realization of the impacts on the marine life
Speaker 1: were really reinforced.
Speaker 6: The algal bloom has spread into the Golfer Saint Vincent,
Speaker 6: with smaller mini blooms likely present in the Spencer Gulf too.
Speaker 1: I've never seen so many dead animals on the bottom
Speaker 1: of the ocean. Normally, if things die, they get consumed
Speaker 1: or washed away or taken away pretty quickly. This wasn't
Speaker 1: the case right now. There's a lot of dead, particularly
Speaker 1: invertebrate animals, so things like sea stars, crabs dead and
Speaker 1: lyned around on the bottom.
Speaker 6: More than twelve thousand animals are estimated to have died
Speaker 6: so far, including fish, sting, rays, dolphins, and sharks. Commercial
Speaker 6: fishes have been forced to pause their operations indefinitely.
Speaker 1: A lot of fish that you would expect to see
Speaker 1: just weren't there. Like a lot of the reefs would
Speaker 1: ghost lick quiet. But at the same time, a lot
Speaker 1: of the seaweeds and a lot of the reefs were okay,
Speaker 1: like reasonably healthy, and so it wasn't a complete apocalypse.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, tell me more about the algal bloom itself.
Speaker 3: What is it exactly and how did it start?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So in this case they have the harmful algal
Speaker 1: bloom is a bloom of micro algae harmful micros in
Speaker 1: this context. The reported species a lot is Kernia mikimoti,
Speaker 1: but it's actually a multiple species that are forming this bloom.
Speaker 1: But what's concerning is there's a number of there's types
Speaker 1: of toxins, So things like brevy toxins which are being
Speaker 1: found in these blooms haven't been recorded in Australia before.
Speaker 1: So while harmful alva blooms are actually really common around Australia,
Speaker 1: we see them in all states. We see them in
Speaker 1: some form each year, we've never seen anything of this
Speaker 1: magnitude before this scale.
Speaker 3: And so what are the conditions that lead to a
Speaker 3: bloom like this? What do you need to have in
Speaker 3: the ocean.
Speaker 1: So typically we need warm temperatures, long days like plenty
Speaker 1: of light and nutrients and for this bloom, what we
Speaker 1: saw was we had a really intense marine heat wave.
Speaker 1: That's one of the most intense marine heat waves who
Speaker 1: recorded in South Australia, which seems to have been a
Speaker 1: real trigger. It obviously occurred in summertime where we still
Speaker 1: have long days, and it was on this base of
Speaker 1: high nutrient conditions. So the nutrient trigger or the nutrient
Speaker 1: source is still unknown, but yeah, certainly nutrients are an
Speaker 1: important factor as well as temperature.
Speaker 3: What is it like for you as someone who has
Speaker 3: spent their working life in reefs gone on? I'm sure
Speaker 3: many dives seen incredible things underwater. What is it like
Speaker 3: to do a dive like this and witness the state
Speaker 3: of the.
Speaker 5: Reef right now?
Speaker 1: It's really devastating to see the state of the reef
Speaker 1: the moment. And for me as a scientist as well,
Speaker 1: South Australia is a really unique place for the biodiversity.
Speaker 1: Least reef biodiversity. Around seventy percent of the species that
Speaker 1: live on the reefs in this area are unique to
Speaker 1: the region, unique to Southern Australia. They're unique because they've
Speaker 1: been isolated literally for tens of millions of years here
Speaker 1: at the bottom of the earth, basically not found anywhere
Speaker 1: else on Earth. And until now, South Australia's been a
Speaker 1: bit of a refuge for a lot of these unique
Speaker 1: temperate species. We've had huge impacts on our east and
Speaker 1: west coast of the country due to marine heat waves
Speaker 1: and the like, and for whatever reason, South Australia hadn't
Speaker 1: suffered those heat waves and those impacts until now, and
Speaker 1: so the population levels of some of our most rare
Speaker 1: and bizarre organisms were stable or high in South Australia
Speaker 1: where they collapsed everywhere else. And now that refuge is
Speaker 1: under attack.
Speaker 3: Can you tell me more about those species? What sorts
Speaker 3: of creatures are we talking about?
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a whole host of really weird and
Speaker 1: wonderful things. I think some of the most iconic species
Speaker 1: are like our leafy sea dragons, particularly around the Adelaide
Speaker 1: coastline and the fluri O Peninsula plased like Rapid Bay
Speaker 1: and Victor Harbor. These are real tourist attractions to come
Speaker 1: and see these leafy sea dragons, which you only find
Speaker 1: in South Australia and in parts of southwestern Australia across
Speaker 1: the Bremer Bay, but in the early days of the bloom,
Speaker 1: people were finding dozens of these washed up and they're
Speaker 1: not huge populations, so they're obviously a massive concern. Another
Speaker 1: massive concern, which is a really live issue at the moment,
Speaker 1: are the giant cuttlefish. And each year there's this remarkable
Speaker 1: event where just thousands one thousands of cuttlefish come and
Speaker 1: aggregate in this small area to mate and lay eggs.
Speaker 1: At the moment, the bloom is tracking up the Spencer
Speaker 1: Gulf towards these aggregations. Currently, the adults have laid their
Speaker 1: eggs and they're now going through their natural senescence phase.
Speaker 1: But there's a lot of concern for what will become
Speaker 1: of this new cohort that's about to hatch, and if
Speaker 1: the bloom continues to move up, it could reach there
Speaker 1: in the next weeks. If nothing changes.
Speaker 3: Coming up, what will happen if the cuttlefish and the
Speaker 3: bloom collide. Scott The algal bloom in South Australia is
Speaker 3: still spreading and it's getting closer and closer to the
Speaker 3: gathering of these giant cuttlefish that's happening right now. So
Speaker 3: if the bloom does spread to where they are, what
Speaker 3: impact will.
Speaker 1: That have well, there's a real risk that we lose
Speaker 1: this entire cohort, which means this entire population it is
Speaker 1: under genuine and serious threat from the hab There's been
Speaker 1: a number of emergency meetings trying discussing possible interventions and
Speaker 1: things like this. But the scale of these aggregations and
Speaker 1: these breeding events, and the timeframe that we're working with,
Speaker 1: which is literally you know now, like things have to
Speaker 1: happen immediately, it is significant. Interventions aren't really on the table.
Speaker 1: Things like removing eggs and relocating them, you know, just
Speaker 1: the feasibility of those things are deemed not possible right now,
Speaker 1: and so there is a real risk these populations are
Speaker 1: lost or they're going to be severely impacted we would expect.
Speaker 3: And one of the scariest things about this algal bloom
Speaker 3: is the scale of it. And it's still spreading, I believe.
Speaker 3: So as you watch that happen, what is that telling
Speaker 3: you about the fate of our oceans more broadly?
Speaker 1: Yes, I think one of the scary things about this
Speaker 1: is the scale of the impact. This is the largest
Speaker 1: harmful algal bloom that we've seen in Australia and most devastating.
Speaker 1: It's spanning across tens of thousands of square kilometers of
Speaker 1: reef of marine habitat, and we don't expect this to
Speaker 1: be an isolated or unique event to South Australia. This
Speaker 1: is quite symptomatic the impacts of climate change that we're
Speaker 1: seeing throughout our coastlines around Australia. I mean, it was
Speaker 1: only this summer that northwestern Australia, up off Ningaloo, the
Speaker 1: roly Shoal, some of our most iconic coral reefs, suffered
Speaker 1: some of the most devastating bleaching events that they've ever
Speaker 1: experienced as well. So this is happening in parallel with
Speaker 1: the have down here. We know in southeastern Australia these
Speaker 1: synergistic or compounding impacts of really rapid rates of warming
Speaker 1: down the coast of Tasmania eastern Victoria. That's bringing new
Speaker 1: species further and further south. And so in the case
Speaker 1: of Tasmania, it's bringing this long spine sea itch and
Speaker 1: further south. And these long spine search is overgrazing that
Speaker 1: they're voracious herbivores. They feed on kelp and seaweeds and
Speaker 1: they create these large baron areas that are devoid of
Speaker 1: vegetation and those barren areas are spreading really rapidly through Tasmania,
Speaker 1: Eastern Victoria, in the far south of New South Wales.
Speaker 1: Now another one of these synergistic effects of climate change
Speaker 1: that we're seeing on our coast that's affecting thousands of
Speaker 1: kilometers and the future of hundreds of thousands of reef species.
Speaker 3: So with all of that already happening, what could be
Speaker 3: done now to protect this marine life?
Speaker 1: Yes, so the have was really triggered by the intense
Speaker 1: marine heat wave we had in South Australia. We know
Speaker 1: heat waves are becoming more frequent and more intense with
Speaker 1: climate change, and so we really need to act on
Speaker 1: climate change as an Australian community, as a global community,
Speaker 1: reduce our carbon emissions immediately. We can't avoid or get
Speaker 1: around that. That has to be our number one priority.
Speaker 1: It's also obviously a long game. There's so much inertia
Speaker 1: in the system, and so at a more regional local
Speaker 1: context there are things we can also do. So looking
Speaker 1: after our coastal waterways and minimizing nutrient pollution is really
Speaker 1: important and there are several ways we can do that.
Speaker 1: So we know our marine habitats play a really crucial
Speaker 1: role in filtering the water. So kelp forests, seagrasses and
Speaker 1: oyster reefs amazing filters of the water. They uptake nutrients
Speaker 1: and keep our coastal water waste clear. So maintaining healthy
Speaker 1: habitats is one of the best things we can do
Speaker 1: to bolster the resilience of our coastal systems.
Speaker 5: And if those changes don't happen, what's at stake here?
Speaker 1: This have has really shown what's at stake. You know,
Speaker 1: the alga bloom in South Australia is just crippled local
Speaker 1: fishing industry, it's crippled the tourism industry, and it's had
Speaker 1: an enormous emotional psychological effect on South Australian people and
Speaker 1: the Australian society more broadly. And these impacts are very
Speaker 1: real at a human level, They're very real and they
Speaker 1: affect us personally. At an ecological environmental scale, we could
Speaker 1: be losing thousands upon thousands of species that are unique,
Speaker 1: that have been swimming these waters for literally tens of
Speaker 1: millions of years, and they could be gone on our.
Speaker 3: What well, Scott, thank you so much for speaking with
Speaker 3: me today.
Speaker 1: Thanks very much.
Speaker 4: Ruby also in the news.
Speaker 3: The Reserve Bank Board has delivered an interest rate cut
Speaker 3: of twenty five basis points from three point eighty five
Speaker 3: to three point six percent.
Speaker 4: The move comes.
Speaker 3: After an unexpected decision last month to leave interest rates
Speaker 3: on hold.
Speaker 5: And Mark Latham has an abusive.
Speaker 3: Obsession with a fellow MP, A court has heard. Independent
Speaker 3: MP Alex Greenwich made the comments in court yesterday as
Speaker 3: his legal fight against Latham continues. Last year, Greenwich sued
Speaker 3: Latham for homosexual vilification and workplace harassment in one receiving
Speaker 3: one hundred and forty thousand dollars in damages. Greenwich's lawyer
Speaker 3: told the court yesterday that since then the independent MP
Speaker 3: has been subject to further hatred and ridicule. Latham denies
Speaker 3: breaching the new South Wales Anti Discrimination Act.
Speaker 5: I'm Ruby Jones.
Speaker 4: This is seven am. Thanks for listening.