COTs Underwater Disaster - N.W. Efate control initiatives continue

 

Hi Olgeta,

 

With June's fine weather, we have taken the opportunity to catch up with painting preparations on our trimaran  and gave the COTs a small break to regather their forces in the  Survivor Beaches area of NorWest Efate.  So, for a couple of weeks we have only done Tourist cruises once or twice a week, but managed to get a couple of divers down at the same time and remove 62 COTs that were incoming to Paul's Rock.

 

 

Early in June  Sailaway Cruises teamed up with Aeron & 7 lads from Natapao Village, who also work with Lelepa Island Tours,  to  do a COTs culling on the Eastern corner of Lelepa Island, next to the channel  separating it from Moso Island.

The COTs found were in relatively shallow waters  (<4 m) so we only needed to snorkel to hook & bag the COTs around this coastline.

182 were collected inside the channel entrance, within Havannah Harbour. 

 After lunch on *Golden Wing* we were entertained by cruising yachtie Kurt with his UFO-drone-quadcopter fitted with GoPro mini video camera (see pic below, of the Lelepa lads waving to the airborne camera). 

 In the afternoon we did another 2 hour snorkel to collect a further 192 COTs on the NorthEast corner of Lelepa. All COTs were taken ashore to a remote beach .  Total = 374 counted.

A couple of days later we returned with scuba divers to clear out the remainder of this group in slightly deeper waters  (up to 8 m), removing an additional 72. We checked further out to sea to 15m depths, but could find  no further COTs.  But we know there will shortly be more arrivals coming down from the Nguna/Pele outbreak.

 

Tranquillity Dive  have found larger adult COTs entering Havannah Harbour on the Moso Island side of the channel and 4 divers removed 63 from the water in early July.  Removals continue there.

 

So, this steady movement of COTs down the Moso & Lelepa coasts is in shallow waters only, which is quite a different travelling technique to the Survivor Beach / Paul's Rock COTs which move faster at 15 to 25 m depths, but with relatively few coming in closer to shore.  The latter are the Vila town brood of COTs, seemingly going at full-speed, no-brake to escape the rat-race around there !

 

On the Sat 6 July cruise, we had 3 divers bag 80 COTs in 15 to 20m waters off the Survivor Women's Camp beach, which seemed to clear out this small aggregation, but further white scarring was evident not far from there, so we expect to find another few groupings of COTs on next Saturday's COTs culling day.  These areas were cleared of COTs several months ago, but obviously new clusters are progressively inbound from Tukutuku Point  (originating from the Port Vila /Mele Bay outbreak a few years ago).

 

OTHER SIGHTINGS AROUND THE ISLANDS:

 

Cruising yachties are keeping us appraised of COTs sightings as they travel North from Efate.

 

Sulua Bay on Emae Is.  has a few remaining COTs from the massive devastation caused in the past few years.  Very little live coral left on Emae  and Cooks Reef has a second generation of smaller COTs feeding there.

When 2 yachts arrived at the Tongoa Wall, planning to check on COTs dispersions, local entrepreneurs advised them it would cost 10,000 Vatu per diver to dive there !  Holy moly !   Needless to say, no diving was done and we now have no info on Tongoa COTs which have probably plagued the reef and which could have been cleared out by the 7 scuba divers with hooks & bags at the ready.

 

Another (Cook's?) Reef between Avock Is. and Pescarus in the Maskelynes was dived and 1 bag of COTs was filled.

On the reef outside Gaspard Bay, Maskelynes, 2 more bagfuls were removed by the yachtie COTs-warriors on *Reflection* catamaran.

The Maskelyne Islands have had major coral loss from COTs in the past year.  They used to have magnificent acropora gardens there.

A few were seen at Port Sandwich, so it looks like the whole of Southern Malekulas is infested   (to be checked out more  in the near future).

 

Another yachtie in Santo advises that West Malo Island has a huge aggregation of COTs near the USS *Tucker* WW2 destroyer shipwreck, as does South Aore Island and the islands to the East of Luganville, like Tutuba.         Bokissa Island Dive  is actively removing COTs from Tourism-sensitive reefs.  This is hard work and costly to carry out, but morally rewarding for those who get involved. They need more support.

This whole Luganville area needs urgent COTs Control Funding to clear out these large infestations.  Local communities could be working with Scuba operators based in Luganville..

 

Advice to us from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority is to cull or extract as many COTs as possible, wherever they are found, to help reduce the population and minimise secondary outbreaks, which eventually lead to no coral cover left.   They no longer seem to be thinking that this is a natural phenomena and we just have to let it run its course.  Fatalistic thinking like this is the lazy, easy way of tuning out the problem and hoping it will go away.

  It has been observed that the COTs don't just die out once a coral reef is consumed.  They move on to other pastures and can walk across the seafloor  many kilometers to reach the next fast-food joint.  And COTs larvae can ride the ocean currents for up to 22 days without a feed, so a plague can easily spread from one island to the next in an archipelago like Vanuatu.

This would explain why the 1990-1991 COT's outbreak in Port Vila and North Efate, was observed to progressively move north to Emae, Epi and beyond.  They have now reached the Torres Islands  and the islands in-between are experiencing second and third generation outbreaks.

 

The excesses of mankind are usually the starting points for COTs outbreaks, be they agricultural development & nutrients being washed down to the oceans including superphosphate runoffs;  pollution and effluent from townships or resorts;   dredging of harbours & ports, causing siltation & destroying mangrove areas to build coal terminals (GBR) or waterfront villas (& thus depleting fish nurseries and it's the fish that keep the COTs larvae down); over-fishing coastal areas, particularly big & small wrasse, trigger fish; the Aquarium Trade taking out the ornamental fish which also eat COTs larvae; removal of triton shells.

 

So, if mankind's need for development has caused this massive environmental underwater disaster, then it is up to mankind to do something about repairing the damage and not just shrugging it off as *progress*.

 

That's all for now.  

cheers,  Peter Whitelaw @ Sailaway Cruises,

<sailaway@vanuatu.com.vu>

Tel:  23802;   7723802