Adelaide’s media wants to blame Beijing, Canberra, sex offenders, hoon drivers, the poor, the GST, etc, for the devastating algae blooms across 100s of kilometres of South Australian coast line.

Adelaide is the Flint, Michigan of Australia – but we’ll all go together when we go.

We’ve ‘seen’ this before in the lead up to the Permian Extinction about 250 million years ago. As the earth’s temperature rose, large algae blooms covered the seas. Then Siberian volcanoes, toxic gas and the destruction of the ozone layer finished the job.

In South Australia there have been mass deaths of sharks, octopus, fish, crabs, sea cucumbers and more.

Some of the most commonly recorded species washing up around the central SA coast include fiddler rays, Port Jackson sharks, shovelnose rays, cobbler wobbegongs and large smooth rays, amongst others.

Pelagic sharks are also dying from the physiological effects of the bloom cells – white sharks, bronze whalers, gummy, whiskery, and other species.

Dead sharks are continuing to wash up in various parts of SA over autumn 2025, from the lower south-east of SA through to the gulfs.  

Legislatively protected leafy and weedy sea dragons are also dying and populations in the upper south-east, Encounter Bay islands, Kangaroo Island and southern Yorke Peninsula will be hit for years to come.

The multiple sea dragon deaths occurred before the spring and summer egg-carrying periods. Many breeding age adult sea dragons have died, and will not contribute to creating the next generation.

Harmful algal blooms including toxic dinoflagellates such as species in genus Karenia, have increased around the world in recent decades.

Globally, Karenia blooms are triggered by numerous oceanographic conditions, but some consistent precursors include higher than average sea temperatures (e.g. 2.5 – 3 degrees higher in SA waters in autumn 2025), higher than average air temperatures (up to 10 degrees higher than long term average in SA, in autumn 2025).