Daghang Dap-ag (Lots of Crown-of-Thorns Starfish)

Crown-of-Thorns Starfish are a cool looking, but very destructive part of the coral reef ecosystem. In the past few decades, their population has exploded. Reasons are not fully known, but it’s likely that human activity has been a large factor. This is a problem because the starfish eat corals and can destroy entire reefs if they go unchecked – the coral reef being the basis for the entire local marine ecosystem. A couple months ago the population started increasing in our Tandayag Marine Sanctuary, so we recently had a underwater cleanup and dap-ag removal with the Bantay Dagat. We armed ourselves with snorkels and sharpened bamboo sticks and went hunting. You have to be really careful because the dap-ag are poisonous, so you must avoid getting stung. In places with lots of extra money to kick around, like Australia, divers are hired to inject poison into the starfish, which is probably the most effective means of getting rid of them. However, if you’re not poisoning them, you have to remove them entirely from the water, which is what we did. After an hour of so scouring the reef for every last one (we undoubtedly missed some, they like to hide in the nooks and crannies of corals), we had a couple hundred in the boat. To prevent them from going back to the water, we buried them in a mass grave on the beach. And our reef is safe from this particular threat for the time being.

Adam loading up the basin with starfish from the boat (click images to see larger sizes)

Mga dap-ag

The Bantay Dagat crew and the beach burial