A 2012 study carried out by the Australian Institute of Marine Science showed that along with tropical cyclones, the crown-of-thorns starfish is one of the leading causes of coral loss in the Great Barrier Reef over the past 27 years.

Killing off the starfish one-by-one could make for a lengthy campaign as there are an estimated four to 12 million crown-of-thorns starfish on the Great Barrier Reef, with each female produces 65 million eggs every breeding season.

Queensland researchers say simple household vinegar acts as a cheap and effective weapon against pesky crown-of-thorns starfish. The journey to combat this problem has proven to be challenging for scientists because even though an effective intervention is available, it is expensive, hard to find and uses harmful chemicals.

Researchers at James Cook University have now discovered that a simple dose of vinegar has a 100% kill rate for the coral-hungry starfish.

Bostrom-Einarsson said in the JCU lab trials, all specimens were dead within 48 hours of being injected. “We used 20 mls of vinegar, which is half the price and can be bought off the shelf at any local supermarket”. Aside from the rarity of this substance, it is also expensive, necessitates permits and should be at a certain concentration. However, she admits that additional studies are needed to confirm that this is the case.

“There’s no reason to think it won’t work or it’ll be unsafe, but we have to be sure”, she said.

The research is particularly exciting for developing countries that don’t now have the budget to purchase the CoTS drug, but need to do something to protect their corals.

In 2014, authorities were able to kill approximately 350,000 CoTS using two complete boat crews, said Boström-Einarsson. “While it would take an insane effort to cull them all that way, we know that sustained efforts can save individual reefs”, Ms Boström-Einarsson commented.

Researchers are looking into broader population-control strategies, but now , taking out the starfish one by one is the only suitable mechanism for slowing the echinoderms’ advance. It’s already capable of killing way more starfish than a diver can.

To test whether this method may pose a threat to other marine life species, the researchers fed the dead CoTS to the fish in laboratory trials and did not result in any ill effects.