Doubleday said the short lives of the cuttlefish, and lack of generational overlap, made the Spencer Gulf population particularly vulnerable to the harmful bloom of Karenia mikimotoi algae, which has devastated marine life along the state\u2019s coastline since March.<\/p>\n
In an emergency meeting convened by the state government on Wednesday, scientists and marine managers agreed to investigate safeguards in the event of the bloom being detected in waters off Point Lowly, where the cuttlefish gather annually. Options included looking at the feasibility of collecting an insurance population of cuttlefish eggs, something that had never been tried before.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it did reach the breeding aggregation, there\u2019s a good chance it could just wipe all the eggs out,\u201d Doubleday said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen mum and dad die, you\u2019ve just got the offspring left. If all the eggs are wiped out in the bloom \u2013 and we\u2019ve seen how lethal this bloom can be \u2013 then there\u2019s no generation \u2026 left to replenish or repopulate the population.\u201d<\/p>\n Stefan Andrews, marine scientist at the Great Southern Reef Foundation, said if that occurred it would be \u201ccatastrophic\u201d.<\/p>\n Thousands of giant cuttlefish, some measuring up to 50cm, had already arrived \u201cright on cue\u201d to mate and lay eggs at the national heritage-listed Cuttlefish Coast Sanctuary Zone \u2013 about 63km south of Port Augusta and 15km north-east of Whyalla \u2013 according to Andrews, who has spent hundreds of hours underwater observing the cuttlefish breeding events over the last 15 years.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can have tens of thousands of cuttlefish all within a pretty small area,\u201d he said. There\u2019s some really fantastic egg-laying habitat there. It\u2019s this rocky reef that\u2019s got all the seaweeds over it. And they lay the eggs on the underside of what they call dens \u2013 little caves or rocky outcrops.\u201d<\/p>\n