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Robot Submarine Poisons Sea Stars To Save Coral Reefs
schwit1 writes: A 30-kilogram robotic yellow submarine is keeping sea stars in check with poison. The sea stars periodically have huge population booms, and a square kilometer of reef can be home to 100,000 of them. They'll kill off the reefs if left unchecked, but humans can only kill a couple sea stars per minute. The task is overwhelming but simple and repetitive, and thus ripe for automation. The COTSBot has "a maximum speed of over two meters per second and an endurance of over six hours. Five thrusters give it the capability of briefly hovering in the water column, giving it time to attack crown of thorns sea stars with an integrated poison injection system. It's completely autonomous, down to the identification and targeting of [sea stars] lurking among coral."
First they came for the sea stars, but I said nothing...
It's not like humans "correcting" eco-systems they brought off-kilter has ever gone wrong before.
Prototype terminator version 0.001 in testing.
Let's hope "SeaNet" doesn't become self-aware.
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Interesting use of technology, I hope it works well. This sort of thing might be a useful way to address the growing problem of invasive species, many of which are aquatic. It seems to be a preferable means of addressing the issue instead of trying to introduce more predator species in an attempt to control an invasive species.
If it doesn't it should carry a "body cam" to review the kills to ensure is it working properly and not killing things it shouldn't.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Crown of Thorns Starfish are killing the great barrier reef off of the east coast of Australia due to an explosion in their numbers, they eat the live coral and kill it.
We're trying to counter the damage they're doing to the reef.
Way to pass judgement when you have no idea what you're talking about.
Aren't we supposed to preserve nature and leave it alone?
Why no, no we're not. Who assigned us that task? Our job is the same as every other living organism - to reproduce and spread, modifying the existing balance as necessary to further that goal and snuffing out any other species who stand in our way.
You know nothing about the Great Barrier Reef and the threat that an explosion in the number of Crown of Thorns Starfish is doing to it.
Way to go, passing judgement when you don't have all the info, you're a class act.
who decides that one life form (and a lower one at that) is more valuable than another?
Do you miss the smallpox virus?
We introduced this species to the barrier reef (accidentally, via bilge water from ships).
It is destroying innumerable living things and the reef itself.
Obviously we should have done better, but the question remains: what is the optimal action to take now to limit total damage?
Kill the starfish, or kill the reef (along with many of the animals that rely on it) indirectly through inaction?
(NB: no time travel allowed)
Pot meet kettle
It's a sad day indeed that the most relevant post so far is a cold fjord troll. Why do you other people bother to post when you must realise how utterly clueless you all are. Crown of thorns starfish are a destructive invasive species that need to be taken care of for the good of the rest of the entire reef. But you keep telling us how you're so smart and we are playing god etc etc.
It's perfectly natural, we are just a new apex predator that happens to create selection pressures for aesthetics and cuteness.
The original post failed to mention that the Crown of Thorns Starfish was an invasive species to the Great Barrier Reef. This is also not mentioned in Wikipedia, but in another post on this thread. In other words, we caused the problem and are now trying to fix it. That would make sense.
Given the lack of clarity in the OP, the response, "Who are we to tamper with nature", is perfectly reasonable.
... and cause of the world's problems ?! Just out of curiousity, why the boom in sea star population? Does this happen regularly ie. part of a natural cycle? And does the interruption of that cycle have any repercussions?
Question: should humans intervene in natural processes that they do not completely understand.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
This isn't an issue where "nature" will work itself out and we aren't slaughtering innocent sea stars wholesale. We as humans have messed up a good chunk of the reef with chemicals and pollution. The sea stars are forced to go eat the good part of the reef left we're trying to preserve because WE as humans took away their habitat. They have little natural predators, reproduce like crazy, and no commercial value.
I want to be the first to welcome our poison-injecting robotic overlords.
I do hope whoever wrote the pattern recognition algorithm checked, double checked & triple checked it.
And then sent it for code-review, static and dynamic code analyzers and finally
open sourced it for the swarm of eyeballs that surely audit the code for free.
It's cool just as long as there's no clear analog to robots recognizing and poisoning animals with automated flying drones.
Not sure whether you're sarcastic or not but we are well on the path of exterminating ourselves, this is one of the things we can try in order to survive, eat and multiply even more.
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Without this technology the oceans have survived billions of years. Why do we need to come and "save" the reefs? There are natural cycles to life where sometimes life is prosperous and other times there are are die-offs. If they really care about saving the reefs then they would create an international ban on bottom trawlers and overfishing.
Wait. Has anyone thought about this? Maybe this is supposed to be happening? Maybe it's an evolutionary event?
Because when you do
Go against nature
It's part of nature too.
- Love & Rockets
"Why are we humans entitled to dictate nature and kill species this way? "
Because humans like coral reefs more than nature does.
I'm a human supremacist. Greens can bite me, though I have to warn you that would not be vegan.
Oh, when it's all about eliminating starfish suddenly you people don't mind the Kill-Bots!
Why would we be supposed to do anything?
We are the dominant species. We do things that are in our interest. Is preserving some species in our interest? Most likely yes. Still, in this case, that particular species is destroying something else that we want to preserve.
Allegedly they considered building robots, because the crown-of-thorns' natural enemy, the giant triton were nearly harvested to death, only eat one starfish a week, and only reproduce slowly in their natural environment.
Technology aside, if a 20 kg carnivorous snail isn't cool, I'm not sure what is.
Wonder if anybody has considered coming up with ways to efficiently breed these guys? I think they'd make awesome pets.
I don't know how many species have been hunted to extinction, but wouldn't a better solution here be to just capture them and eat them instead of killing them?
Maybe do some marketing and turn them into the next lobster.
...we don't look like sea stars to some galactic race.
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Seems we are taking sides in Mother Nature's struggles for survival.
It begs the question, "What animal keeps these critters populations down, and why isn't out there doing it?"
Have gnu, will travel.
So what about the dead rotting poison-riddled carcases? Are they going to disrupt the ecosystem?
A single species of sea-star is a single species of sea-star. A coral reef is the home and foundation to one of the most ecologically diverse places on earth. Destroy the coral and the place turns into a wasteland.
We should be taking sides. The human analogy is terrorists moving through a city and destroying it, displacing the population and leaving nothing in their wake.
Why are we humans entitled to dictate nature and kill species this way? Aren't we supposed to preserve nature and leave it alone? Nature has done just fine for millions of years, it needs no help from us to strike a balance.
Except nature did just fine for millions of years only until we upset the eco-system. The crown-of-thorns population has exploded as a result of human farming causing nutrient run-off into the oceans. We caused this problem, and we're trying to fix it and give nature a fighting chance. The current trend shows that nature is losing this battle badly and the great barrier reef is about to end up on the UNESCO endangered list. The only reason it's not on the list already is because the Australian government is pouring billions of dollars into its protection.
Lobsters eat sea star fish and are much tastier than a robot, perhaps we should breed thousands of tasty meals to eat up star fish.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Lionfish are taking over reefs in Florida. Luckily they are easy to spear since they just stay still. They should also be an easy target for something like this.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
I remember a similar problem with pigeons.
We ended up releasing lizards that fed on the pigeons.
Then we released Chinese needle snakes to eat the lizards.
To control the snakes, we released gorillas.
Once wintertime rolled around, the gorillas simply froze to death.
Exhibit A: http://i.imgur.com/6e4rNnt.png
Fast forward to 2015: http://i.imgur.com/UurlCl7.jpg
edit: if you're confused by the second picture, that's what Detroit looks like after it was ruined by a different kind of invasive species.
For those of you wondering what the fuck I'm talking about, consider this:
1. Frozen chickens don't grow on trees. You want to eat meat? An animal has to die.
2. Carrots were alive once. You're anti-hunting? Draw the line somewhere. Even fungus is life. You're gonna give up Quorn for your moral stance, or are you going to be a hypocrite?
3. Ever take the train? Thank people like me for the fact that there are fewer rabbits digging under the ties, causing them to sink under their own weight and dropping away deforming the rails when a train runs over them.
4. Ever fly? Thank people like me for the fact that your flight doesn't swallow a flock of pigeons at 140mph.
On #3 and #4: I eat rabbits, they don't go to waste. Town pigeons go straight to the incinerator (I have my own, the city doesn't like burning biohazardous waste), wood pigeons which are visibly healthier and less likely to be carrying crippling parasites get cooked in with other game animals such as partridge, quail, hare and pheasant, and make great party nibbles.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Would you rather cull the lions so that the survivors have enough food to survive the next season and make babies, or would you rather keep them all alive and this side of starving, no kittens next year, and forty or fifty very sick lions?
This isn't a fucking moral issue, it's a practical one.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
because we humans fucked it up in the first place by (accidentally) introducing the species to an alien environment. We humans are now (have been for the past thirty years) trying to fix things by removing every COTS we see on the reef. This isn't dictating to nature, this is damage control.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
100% correct. Because it was like totally us (well, it was actually me that gave the order - whoops!) that put the lions where the antelopes were.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
So after successfully deploying the flying automated killer drones, here's a submarine version, next up: A two legged version to anihilate whatever species is considered a disturbance on land.
We hardly ever see a successful campaign to save critters that aren't fuzzy and cuddly or cute. An exception being the Californian Condor. One amusing bit about the condor is that their numbers are returning nicely but they've moved out of California in droves. It seems they've decided to live in the area around the Grand Canyon as I recall. The Californians spent a lot of money to restore the population and the birds decided to get the hell out of the area instead of staying. I found it amusing when the story popped up in an NPR news show quite a while ago.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
The Crown of Thorns star fish problem was created by humans inadvertently, and it is destroying the ecosystem. Reefs are the ecosystem... most ocean life depends on living reef. Maybe in 1000 years a reef can recover from this kind of devastation, but it certainly is not optimal and rather obtuse and arrogant to suggest that any damage humans do to delicate ecosystems, nature will solve for us. Because in the meantime, all life is diminished while nature recovers. Sooner or later, Nature will solve humans, and no doubt the Earth will survive. A poor argument: we can carelessly destroy the ecosystems we rely on to survive because nature will eventually recover.
you would think people would understand how this works by now.
If Australia failed to eradicate its rabbit population after unleashing two biological weapons - plagues! - against them, then what hope is this weak tactic of a robot killing starfish one by one. These things lay eggs by the millions! "breed like rabbits"... no, breed like starfish!
Isn't this a perfect thing to livestream? Imagine having a bad day at work or school, then come home and watch a few hundred sea stars get poisoned. I would be totally down for that!
So, corals which are more simple species than starfish are being protected? We should kill all humans then :D