![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/giant-australian-cuttlefish-pair.webp.webp\")
A pair of giant Australian cuttlefish at Point Lowly, South Australia (Photo: Philip Garner\/Shutterstock)<\/p>\nA pair of giant Australian cuttlefish at Point Lowly, South Australia (Photo: Philip Garner\/Shutterstock)<\/p>\n
The Australian government is investing AU$700,000 to install a \u2018bubble curtain\u2019 which will protect South Australia\u2019s giant cuttlefish from a toxic algal bloom. <\/p>\n
Between May and August each year, hundreds of thousands of giant Australian cuttlefish (Sepia apama) migrate to the South Australian coastline near Whyalla to mate.<\/p>\n
This year, however, the breeding grounds are under threat from a toxic algal bloom that has been growing in size since March. <\/p>\n
The bloom, made up of the species Karenia mikimotoi, is a natural phenomenon but one that scientists from the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI) say has been exacerbated<\/a> by the marine heatwave of 2024 \u2013 although this has reportedly now abated.<\/p>\n A similar bloom occurred in South Australia\u2019s Coffin Bay in 2014, and lasted four months before dissipating.<\/p>\n While many algal blooms are harmless, this one is proving extremely toxic to some marine fauna. It is known to affect the gills of fish, and dead cuttlefish have been washed up on beaches close to the phenomenon. <\/p>\n Scientists have considered collecting eggs from the cuttlefish and relocating them to a different area, but this comes with several concerns.<\/p>\n Related articles<\/p>\n The population of giant Australian cuttlefish is regarded as relatively healthy (the IUCN Red List labels them as \u2018Near Threatened\u2019<\/a>), and they return to the same area every year to breed \u2013 a site preference that is not well understood.<\/p>\n Taking the eggs elsewhere might expose them to predators not present at the Whyalla breeding site, and may not, in fact, protect them from the effects of the algal bloom, the movements of which are difficult to predict. <\/p>\n The 200 by 100-metre bubble curtain will be installed on the Eyre Peninsula of the aptly named Cuttlefish Coast, with the aim of preventing, or seriously reducing, the amount of algae that is able to pass through the bubbles.<\/p>\n The curtain will be created by deploying tubes along the rocky reef, which ranges in depth from two to seven metres, that will be fed by land-based compressors. <\/p>\n Deputy South Australia Premier Susan Close said the bubble curtain was \u2018a trial\u2019 and may not be necessary if the algal bloom changes course.<\/p>\n \u2018It hasn\u2019t been done like this for this particular species before. But we have every reason to think that where we install it we will hold the algae back,\u2019 said Ms Close in a press conference detailing the strategies being discussed to preserve the cuttlefish.<\/p>\n \u2018Because this population is so important to South Australia, we think it\u2019s worth that investment,\u2019 she continued. \u2018We\u2019ll be paying very careful attention obviously to the movement of the algae up the coastline.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u2018If the algae doesn\u2019t make it up we won\u2019t need to turn it on.\u2019<\/p>\n The bubble curtains have been used before, but not at such a scale. <\/p>\n \u2018It\u2019s usually been used around things like aquaculture pens, so deploying it at a large scale is something relatively new,\u2019 said Australia\u2019s Biodiveristy Council CEO James Trezise. <\/p>\n \u2018Hopefully there\u2019ll be a lot of learning and insights that arise out of this.\u2019<\/p>\n Whyalla Dive Shop owner and director of the Eyrelab<\/a> not-for-profit conservation organisation, Manny Katz told ABC News<\/a> that protecting the cuttlefish \u2018would benefit both the environment and the community\u2019.<\/p>\n \u2018From a business point of view it\u2019s great because so many Whyalla-based businesses benefit from the cuttlefish industry \u2026 from the tourism aspect,\u2019 said Katz.<\/p>\n \u2018The amount of divers and snorkellers coming up from Adelaide who want to interact with a marine ecosystem that is healthy \u2026 [has] been a saving grace for a lot of ocean enthusiasts, seeing a place that\u2019s not totally destroyed.<\/p>\n \u2018We need to monitor and hopefully restore impacted sites around SA, but we also have to protect sites from getting impacted as well.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A pair of giant Australian cuttlefish at Point Lowly, South Australia (Photo: Philip Garner\/Shutterstock) The Australian government is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113281,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,80783,8145,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-113280","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cephalopods","11":"tag-marine-conservation","12":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/south-australia-algal-bloom.webp.webp\")
Algae blooming on Semaphore Beach, Adelaide, South Australia (Photo: Sigorvision\/Shutterstock)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/giant-australian-cuttlefish.webp.webp\")
A giant Australian cuttlefish shot at Whyalla, South Australia (Photo: Philip Garner\/Shutterstock)<\/p>\n