Overview
- The South Australian government announced a 90-day exclusion starting Wednesday that bans swimming, snorkelling, diving and vessel anchoring between Black Point and Stony Point inside the Upper Spencer Gulf Marine Park.
- This season survey counts fell to only a few dozen cuttlefish compared with tens of thousands in recent years, prompting widespread tour cancellations and operators to call the season a write-off.
- Scientists and officials link the collapse to the severe 2025–26 algal bloom that killed more than 90,000 marine animals and to environmental drivers such as warmer sea temperatures, nutrient runoff from Murray–Darling floods and still water.
- The state has set up a $3.8 million Office for Algal Bloom Research and is offering grants to affected businesses, while fines and a decade-long sanctuary fishing ban remain in place to protect the species.
- Researchers and local operators warn that decades of limited baseline monitoring and the loss of native oyster filtration mean the timeline and likelihood of recovery are uncertain and that longer-term restoration and monitoring are needed.