An ecological disaster has been unfolding on Australia’s coast
A mysterious, brown foam appeared on a beach an hour south of Adelaide. It was just the beginning of a toxic algal bloom that has now grown to thousands of square kilometres in size, killing precious sea life in its wake
In the early hours of Saturday, March 15, Mr Rowland went to Waits with some friends.
Shortly after arriving, he began to feel sick. “I did notice when I was walking down the steps that I felt like … maybe I’ve got a flu coming on,” he recalled.
“You know, just your taste is a little bit off. But didn’t think anything of it.”
The water was glistening as usual, and as the sun rose more people arrived to catch a wave. But it wasn’t long before he and his friends started coughing, and when they returned to their cars, other beachgoers were experiencing the same symptoms.
“I started looking around, it was quite a busy car park and I noticed like these guys were coughing, they were coughing, everyone was coughing here and there, and I was like, ‘Alright, something’s really not right here …’” he said.
One surfer said his vision was impacted so badly it was like he was “looking through the end of two Coke bottles”.
Mr Rowland reported the matter to authorities but felt like no-one was taking him seriously.
The next day, a brown foam appeared at Waitpinga Beach, as well as a handful of dead leafy sea dragons.
On Monday, Mr Rowland returned to the beach with ABC reporter Caroline Horn to find the foam “five times worse” as well as scores of dead sea creatures. By that afternoon, authorities closed both Waitpinga and Parsons beaches to investigate whether a “fish mortality event” had occurred and warned people not to swim.
Mr Rowland did not know it yet, but he and other beachgoers had come into contact with an algal bloom called Karenia mikimotoi, which can be lethal to sea life, and cause flu-like symptoms in humans.
Ongoing marine heatwave to blame
Professor Murray said marine phytoplankton was a crucial part of the ecosystem, producing up to half the oxygen in the earth’s atmosphere.
She said only a small percentage of the more than 100,000 different species of microalgae were toxic.
“Mikimotoi has probably had the most effects worldwide in terms of harmful algal impacts, especially on fisheries and aquaculture, but also just on the general marine environment of the Karenias,” she said.
