Robots to start killing crown-of-thorns starfish on Great Barrier Reef

Destroy, move, fix, destroy. Full circle.

RangerBot is an advanced version of the 2015 robot, with a newer submersible design, handheld remote-control and computer vision to identify invasive species.

"In 2015, an early prototype of the robot "COTSbot" made international news. Now its successor the RangerBot is significantly more advanced.

The RangerBot is equipped with a vision system that allows it to "see" underwater while being operated using a tablet.

QUT Professor Matt Dunbabin said the robot used real-time vision to navigate and identify starfish."

Yes, but:

Tackling global warming (or agricultural runoff) takes a bit of time and sometimes seems impossible since some folks seriously resist these things. In the meantime, these killing robots still have their place in helping the reef survive. If you have the means to tackle on of the three major threats now, by all means, please do.

The theory of the starfish population growth is that increased nutrients in the sea from increased land run off is the cause, since it allows more of the baby starfish to survive. So agriculture is probably to blame this time rather than global warming, but the sentiment is the same. Fix the symptoms as it's easier than tackling the cause.

Skynet will eventually recognize humans as a threat to the Great Barrier Reef.

Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

Crown of Thorns is an invasive species. It's not indigenous to the area.

In school, we once had a biology test about the Spanish (English?) importing rats to some Caribbean island by accident which then ate all the sugar cane they planted.

So they deliberately introduced a kind of snake to eat the rats. But the rats and the snakes both wreaked havoc among indigenous species; also, the snakes started biting the slaves working in the plantations to the point where the slaves refused to work.

So they introduced another animal (mongoose?)to eat the snakes, which sort-of worked, but these animals also went to town on some other indigenous species.

In the end, they got their sugar cane, but the indigenous ecosystem was damaged heavily. Sorry I am so fuzzy on the details, that test was about 19-20 years ago...

At least the colonial powers of their time had the excuse of not knowing any better.

We tried this with lionfish in the Caribbean; it is just really challenging to catch them in a non-destructive way so they are economically viable. And IMO they don’t taste very good unless fried, at which point everything tastes the same.