I have been going through the archives looking for material for a photobook based on this minor blog.
This image is from the 2018 archives:
I have stayed away from walking the coast throughout 2025 due to the toxic micro algae bloom (which we knew as -Karenia mikimotoi) in our coastal waters. Ths algae bloom has impacted some 20,000 square kilometers and about 30% of the coastline of South Australian has killed around a million fish. We now know that this algae bloom is made up of a mix of Karenia species (eg. Karenia cristata, Karenia mikimotoi, Karenia brevisulcata, Karenia longicanalis and Karenia papilionacea).
One of the species in the Karenia algae bloom has recently been identified as Karenia cristat. It is the most abundant species in most of the samples used for the study, and it is the species responsible for producing the highly damaging brevetoxins within SA's harmful algal bloom. It has only been found twice before: off the coast of Canada’s Newfoundland in 2014 and in a South African bay (1989 and again the mid-1990s) where a bloom caused respiratory symptoms in people and killed abalone.
Scientists are still trying to understand why K. cristata has dominated the algae bloom and its significant spatial expansion and temporal persistence. These algae are always in the background — they just need the right conditions to bloom. There is some evidence that climate change has expanded conditions favourable for fish-killing marine harmful algal blooms (HABs) worldwide.