Last week while I had the new NSP 14 in the Coco Matt construction for the big 14' board test I paddled it around St Kilda marina.. While paddle I did the usual by plucking some of the bad starfish out and put them in the sun to die.. These starfish came here in the ballast water in ships from Japan and they seem to love the conditions here.. Each one can produce 20 million more.. and with no preditor their numbers are growing fast. They eat what the local starfish eat and so the beautiful local starfish numbers are dropping.. They eat fish eggs so the fish numbers also drop.. There is a $500 fine for putting them back in the water once removed.. Some days I only find a few.. other days I might pull out 20 or more.. We normally throw them up on the rocks.
While looking for them I came across a little fairy penguin that seemed distressed and caught in the seagrass.. It also seemed to be coated in oil or something.. Maybe it was trying to clean itself.. We normally leave these little fella's alone and never attemp to touch them but I plucked this one out so it could be checked out and cleaned.
The coco matt NSP Was great.. Here's my vid.. Please don't attempt to touch a penguin like I did.. btw there's about 1,500 penguins that live on penguin island (the breakwater wall) at St Kilda marina.
DJ
^^^ Good intentions, but not a great idea. The issue is that many people can't differentiate between native seastars/starfish & the introduced Nortern Pacific Seastars - (the ones DJ plucked out).
The (native) '11 armed seastar' have been prolific around here for years, I've caught many simply fishing off the local breakwater and the doo-gooders are constantly dumping them in the fish bins at the local boatramp along with other native starfish.
A bit like the whole 'catch Kony' thingy - goes pear-shaped pretty quick...How about removing jetskiiers from the water instead? (although I think they breed faster!)
