There’s a plague on our beautiful TARP reefs – the local environment is overrun with Crown of Thorns, and our Downbelow PADI Instructor team ‘attack’ on behalf of our marine biodiversity!

These sea stars love corals as much as divers, but to an unhealthy measure. The animals consume the polyps that live in corals, and without the animal, the mineral cannot ‘live’. So over time (and only a very small amount of time), our PADI professionals noticed more and more areas of ‘coral bleaching’ (white-coloured corals), as well as accommpaying Crown of Thorns sea stars.

During Cardiff University’s tropical ecology field trip, resident Platinum PADI Course Director and Managing Director of Downbelow Marine and Wildlife Adventures Richard Swann, organised several dives to remove as many of the sea stars from the reef.
Spliting the group of a dozen Cardiff University students into smaller groups of 2 to 3, the supervising PADI professional could focus on removing the sea stars thorny grip, while their assistants collected the ones removed into mesh bags gifted by Project AWARE.

Hopefully we will see a difference in the health of our marine environment, even if it is a minor positive difference!