Researchers blame an increase in illegal fishing for the decline of sea cucumbers in a remote Australian marine park and say many other reefs in the country have also been affected.The Australian government has launched an operation to crack down on illegal fishing in the country’s Northern Territory where the problem is acute, including for high-value sea cucumbers.But as long as the market for sea cucumbers remains strong in China and other East Asian countries, experts say, wild populations of this slow-growing animal could collapse and put the health of reef systems at risk in Australia and beyond.
Off the northwestern coast of Australia, in some of the world’s most pristine and diverse coral reefs, sea cucumbers are rapidly vanishing.
Overall populations of these tubular, blobby animals declined by more than half from 2018 to 2023 in the Rowley Shoals, a remote Australian marine park, according to a recent survey. Some especially vulnerable species, such as the pineapple sea cucumber (Thelenota ananas) and the hairy blackfish (Actinopyga miliaris), have disappeared across most or all of the monitoring sites there.
Researchers believe a boom in illegal fishing is to blame. Sea cucumber harvesting is prohibited in the Rowley Shoals, and the survey found Australian authorities caught 112 fishing vessels in the area carrying a collective 22 metric tons of sea cucumbers between 2021 and 2023, a figure that translates to roughly 33,000-45,000 animals. This is just the share of illegal fishing that authorities managed to intercept; the researchers noted that the actual sea cucumber body count is likely much higher.
