Toxic algae blighting South Australia could pose a global threat

 

Image courtesy of Australian Associated Press/Alamy

Joel Kontinen

Algae bloom poses a great problem in Australia. It is killing fish.

Over the past eight months, a vast and deadly algal bloom in South Australia has ravaged over 20,000 square kilometres of the marine environment, killed an estimated 1 million animals from more than great 550 species and had widespread impacts on human health.

Now, researchers have finally identified the species behind the ecological disaster, and they warn that it represents an “emerging international threat with unknown consequences”.

The culprit is an algal species named Karenia cristata, which has only previously been reported in two locations near South Africa, where it caused fish die-offs in 1989 and again the mid-1990s, as well as off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.

 Source:

James Woodford 2025 Toxic algae blighting South Australia could pose a global threat | New Scientist 5 November