Vinegar May Save the Great Barrier Reef from Coral-Munching Starfish

There may be a new weapon against the Crown of Thorns Starfish. Scientists have found that simple household vinegar kills the starfish just as effectively as the current drug that's being used, which can be expensive and difficult to source.

The Crown of Thorns starfish are breeding at epidemic levels on the Great Barrier Reef. These animals are actually one of the primary reasons for the decline in live coral in the region. Because of this, humans are now stepping in to cull some of the population in order to preserve vital coral habitat for other species.

"Currently divers use 10 or 12 ml of ox-bile to kill each COTs," said Lisa Bostrom-Einarsson, one of the researchers, in a news release. "It's expensive, requires permits and has to be mixed to the right concentration. We used 20 ml of vinegar, which is half the price and can be bought off the shelf of any local supermarket."

In fact, the researchers found that the starfish injected with vinegar were all dead within 48 hours of being injected. In addition, the dead starfish were fed upon by other fish with no ill-effects on the fish within the lab. With that said, the researchers want to do larger scale field trials in order to make sure the process is completely safe for other marine life before using it.

"It has been estimated there are between 4 and 12 million of the starfish on the Great Barrier Reef alone and each female produces around 65 million eggs in a single breeding season," said Bostrom-Einarsson. "They managed to kill around 350,000 last year with two full-time boat crews. While it would take an insane effort to cull them all that way, we know that sustained efforts can save individual reefs."

Sea trials of the vinegar method will begin by the end of the year.

The findings are published in the journal Coral Reefs.

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