The Crown of Thorns has a pretty bad reputation with divers. Usually divers are marine life aficionados, oohing and aawing over obscure mollusks and rare crustaceans but mention the Crown of Thorns and lips curl and brows furrow. The reason is simple – the poor Crown of Thrones is a bit of a rabid marauder of reefs. Through no fault of their own, their main predator, the triton snail has been fished out and their shells have been sold to irresponsible tourists, here in Malapascua and just about everywhere in the world. As a result the Crown of Thorns is capable of reproducing without fear of predation and sometimes their numbers get so huge that they can totally annihilate a reef, insatiably eating all the soft corals in sight.
Evolution staff have removed thousands and thousands of Crown of Thorns over the years and we continue to do so. We also piloted a project to try and give the much maligned starfish a second lease of life – as fertiliser! Now however, with the help of Super Mermaid and great friend of Evolution Anna Oposa and her NGO Save Philippine Seas the project is getting some real backing.
For some time the fisherman of Vanuatu have been earning a subsistence form Crown of Thorns made fertiliser. Now with Anna steering the project we have great co-operation on the island collecting the starfish and thanks to the donation of some unused land by Andrea from Tepanee we have an area to lay out the starfish, desiccate them and prepare them for mulching. While this project might not make anyone rich it will show that the unpopular Crown of Thorns can do plenty of good. The fertiliser will be used to promote greater cultivation here on the island and if we’re lucky we’ll get some of it into The Craic House’s herb garden.
