00:00Venomous, fast breeding and capable of stripping a reef bare, a coral killer is on the move
00:08on the Great Barrier Reef.
00:10This is a crown-of-thorn starfish, they will mostly feed on hard coral like branching and
00:15table coral and up to a rate of about 13 square metres per year.
00:20Managing the species is a four decade old operation.
00:24Crown-of-thorn starfish are responsible for about a third to 40 per cent of the losses
00:29of coral cover over that period of time.
00:32But as previous outbreaks are still being contained, a new threat is erupting, which scientists
00:37say could become the biggest in more than 60 years, stretching from Cairns to Lizard Island.
00:43We need to get on top of it as fast as we possibly can.
00:46I've just been in the water with the crew watching them cull crown-of-thorn starfish.
00:51It's painstaking, methodical work and scientists say they'd need to double the size of this
00:56operation in order to keep up with the emerging outbreak.
00:59We have seen in previous outbreaks major losses of coral cover.
01:03We've seen it at the beginning of this outbreak when there wasn't sufficient capacity.
01:07It's protecting a natural wonder that supports a tourism industry worth $9 billion a year.
01:12Having tourists every day seeing what we're doing on a daily basis in addition to having
01:17a great time on the reef is really important that you can see that science and good times
01:21can be had together.
01:23It's great to know because this is something like, you know, it needs to stay for a long
01:27time.
01:28We went, what was it, scuba diving.
01:30It's actually amazing.
01:31An underwater battle against a silent invader.
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