Word: starfish
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...animal world. For two members of the conference, Ecologist Lee Talbot and his biologist wife Martha, both of the Smithsonian Institution, his remarks were of more than academic interest. They provided an exciting clue that might well lead to control of the crown-of-thorns, the giant starfish that is literally eating away vital coral reefs in the Pacific (TIME, Sept...
...called jackass penguin (named for its harsh bray). Proceeding upward, the visitor brushes past a large and almost frightening mural covered with life-size silhouettes of sharks. He joins the youngsters at the children's tidal pool -where they are encouraged to reach in and touch starfish, tiny crabs and harmless sea urchins. Finally, as he approaches the highest level, he walks under an awesome 35-foot-long skeleton of an Atlantic right whale...
...irretrieyably disturbed. Little mini-eco-catastrophes have been happening ever since man arrived on the scene. In the South, Pacific collectors, naturalists, and trumpeters on hundreds of islands have been picking up tritons off the coral reefs and beaches to get their conch shells. The tritons cat the starfish which prey on the coral animals that build up the reefs. Because there are now so many people on the earth, they are now picking up enough tritons so that the coral reefs are crumbling. And after a while most of those islands and parts of Australia are going...
...thorns, some scientists suggest repopulating the reefs with tritons, which are now protected by law in Queensland, Australia. Others propose spreading lime on the ocean floor, a technique that has already been used with moderate success to protect Long Island Sound's oyster beds from the common American starfish, Asterias forbesi. A Japanese scientist has even advised stringing wire around coral reefs to repel the starfish with a low-voltage electric shock...
...divers from San Diego's Westinghouse Lab who fanned out across the Pacific this summer in an expedition sponsored by the U.S. Government. Unless the crown-of-thorns is restrained, many more miles of coral in the Pacific and other seas will be ravaged by the spreading starfish...