‘Catastrophic’: Great Barrier Reef hit by its most widespread coral bleaching, study finds
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More than 40% of individual corals monitored around One Tree Island reef bleached by heat stress and damaged by flesh-eating disease. More than 40% of individual corals monitored around a Great Barrier Reef island were killed last year in the most widespread coral bleaching outbreak to hit the reef system, a study has found.
![[Corals at One Tree Island reefafflected by a flesh-eating disease known as black band]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/158378047954faa60d3be7765fa325d246d75d7b/0_62_814_488/master/814.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Scientists tracked 462 colonies of corals at One Tree Island in the southern part of the Great Barrier Reef after heat stress began to turn the corals white in early 2024. Researchers said they encountered “catastrophic” scenes at the reef. Only 92 coral colonies escaped bleaching entirely and by July, when the analysis for the study ended, 193 were dead and a further 113 were still showing signs of bleaching.
Prof Maria Byrne, a marine biologist at the University of Sydney and lead author of the study, has been researching and visiting the island for 35 years. “Seeing those really massive colonies die was really devastating,” she said. “I have gone from being really sad to being really cranky. We have been trying to get the message across about climate change for ages.”.
In November the Australian Institute of Marine Science visited eight reefs in the same Capricorn-Bunker sector of the reef. They found the single largest annual decline in hard coral cover in that area since monitoring started in the mid-1980s, with coral cover dropping by 41%.
