The chaotic history of using vinegar injections to control Acanthaster spp. populations. A comment to Boström-Einarsson L., Bonin M. C., Moon S. and Firth S. (2018). Environmental impact monitoring of household vinegar-injections to cull crown-of-thorns starfish, Acanthaster spp. Ocean & Coastal Management 155: 83-89

Abstract

There seems to be some confusion surrounding the recent renewed interest in the use of vinegar (and other natural acids) to fight outbreaks of the corallivorous crown-of-thorns (COTS) starfish. In a recent paper by Boström-Einarsson et al. (2018), statements were made suggesting that previous studies using vinegar did not succeed in proposing effective, operational control methods. While the notion of effectiveness is indeed open to debate, some of the statements may be misleading. For the sake of clarity here we shed light on the efficacy of previous methods drawn from an exhaustive literature search, including results from “grey literature” which may have gone unnoticed.