Divers remove tons of invasive seaweed from Fiordland stuff.co.nz - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from stuff.co.nz Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
For the first time there has been a mass bleaching of native sea sponges in Aotearoa, raising alarm about the impact climate change is having on marine ecosystems.
Mass bleaching of native sea sponges in Fiordland shocks scientists stuff.co.nz - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from stuff.co.nz Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
A group of scientists from Victoria University of Wellington were alarmed to discover sponges, which are typically a rich chocolate brown, were bleached in more than a dozen sites near Breaksea Sound and Doubtful Sound in Fiordland.
In some parts, as many as 95 percent of the sponges were bleached, said James Bell, a marine biology professor at the university.
“Our initial estimates are there are at least hundreds of thousands of sponges likely to have been bleached and maybe even many more than that,” he said.
Bell’s team discovered the mass bleaching during a research trip last month. The species, which is