Kristen here –
Sorry everyone but Aaron is currently injured and would like to sit out this blog post due to the throbbing pain in his forearm induced by scraping against a starfish known as the crown of thorns. Not be confused with the crown of Christ or the flowering plant with red tiny flowers, this starfish has an amazing self-defense system that renders it practically impenetrable to nearly all predators. The only animal that can slice through a crown of thorns is an urchin that cuts through the starfish like a table saw as it eats on the tender flesh inside the body.
Don’t be deceived by its bright and beautiful colors either! Like most things in nature, the bright colors stand as a warning to other organisms to leave it alone or suffer the consequences. Here in Koh Toa, the starfishes are a purple gray color with an almost iridescent orange on the spines. When in the water, it looks as though you should be able to run your hand over the protrusions much like you would a mohawk. Because the starfish uses water to pump its body up, it flows with the current and even seems to sway with the waters. But as Aaron can attest, the thorns are sharp and contain a potent poison that induces numbness, pain, nausea and dizziness.
As a part of the Ocean’s Day celebration, our team performed a beach clean up in the local Chalok Harbor and then proceeded to the boat in order to dive and collect trash/rubbish there. We divided into two person teams and set out together to gather foreign objects along the sea floor and trapped in the coral. And if you happened upon a Crown of Thorns starfish, remove it. Now, I know what you’re thinking. Removing these starfish seems kind of mean, but they are the rival of rabbits in the breeding department. There are tons of them and they spawn like crazy. Additionally, due to climate change, the populations have boomed and due to the increased numbers, the corals have been silent victims as these starfish roam the reefs destroying everything in their path.
Today, in less than an hour, roughly 10 starfish were collected and outside their natural habitat, meaning that they are wandering in order to consume more food because there are too many animals in that one area. This poses a serious threat to the corals and other wildlife that live there because it’s the equivalent of letting …. You know I’m trying to think of something that compares and I can’t because there isn’t one. No other ecosystem that I’m aware of is created by tiny little animals that create a living, breathing infrastructure. And no other animal creeps in to eat as much as they can before moving on – like the aliens from Independence Day. Consuming what they can and then moving on. So because we (humans) made it possible for these creatures to be so deleterious to the ecosystem, it’s our obligation to deal with them and protect the reefs by disposing of them, usually under a mangrove tree.
My partner, a very sweet and lovely Scottish young lady, were quite successful in collecting trash. We found a cracked diving mask, a blue jacket, tons of fishing line and netting, a license plate, a baseball cap, and other small bits of plastic that we brought back to be properly disposed of. We had a blast cruising around. It was refreshing to see new coral growing from the wasteland of the 2008 bleaching event. New beautiful and vibrant corals were starting to take hold, spread out as if someone just strewn them in the water without a care in the world, fish darting from one hiding place to the next.
It was during this same dive that Kevin and Aaron brought up about 7 crown of thorns and while passing them up onto the boat, the bag swung down and cracked Aaron on the arm. He’s fine, more annoyed than anything it seems. But it’s not a pain he’ll quickly forget. If anything, he can compare his future injuries with it and say “nah, this is nothing, not like that one time I got stung” and the pain won’t seem that bad anymore.
On a side note, there is a walking stick chilling above our room door. Pretty neat!