Government's reef monitoring stalled during crisis bleaching event as funds dried up

Exclusive: Marine Park Authority scaled back surveys in 2017, when mass bleaching occurred in successive years for first time

The Australian government-funded Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority drastically scaled back surveys of coral bleaching in the middle of an unprecedented two-year marine heatwave, as its monitoring program almost ran out of money.

The authority's field management program conducted more than 660 in-water surveys of reefs in 2016, during the first of two consecutive mass bleaching events. The program's annual report said those surveys "played a key role in determining the extent of mortality caused".