Northwest Dive Club

http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com ... cientists/

Seen any dead sea stars lately?

I came across 2 legs that looked to have been torn off on Sunday at Redondo

Found one sick Solaster stimpsoni at Deception Pass today. All other sea stars looked OK.

I did a dive very recently (I can't remember where...) and I remember seeing lots of sea star arms laying around. So yeah, I've seen this happening. I didn't know this was on a large scale though

So what would tear an arm off a sea star? At Sund there was an arm and then the starfish that the arm came off right near the entry but in the boulders where I don't think a diver stepped.

Desert Diver wrote:So what would tear an arm off a sea star? At Sund there was an arm and then the starfish that the arm came off right near the entry but in the boulders where I don't think a diver stepped.

Stars will cast off arm when attacked by a predator (autotomy ). They will grow back. Solaster stars prey on Sunflower and other stars - their favorite food.
Like lizards their tails ...

We used to see this on occasion at the marine center - I think we determined it to be something called "starfish wasting disease" or something like that (there were a few scholarly articles we had about it). Very strange, and always fatal from what I could tell...

Greetings,

I'm not sure how or even if this relates to the topic at hand: Several years ago at the Feiro Center we had a mottled star (Evasterias troscheli) that developed a problem with one arm - specifically, the arm appeared to be 'withering'. The problem was localized to one arm for a month or two and then seemed to spread to the rest of the animal. we assumed that the star would die but we just couldn't bring ourselves to euthanize it. Our indecision was rewarded after another couple of months when the originally afflicted arm developed a constriction (it looked like an invisible elastic band was wrapped around the arm). It took two or three weeks but eventually the arm detached and the star rapidly recovered. It has since regrown the arm and is as good as new. We assumed that the problem was due to disease or parasite since there was no indication of physical injury to the arm in question or the animal as a whole; OTOH the problem never spread to the star's tankmates, conspecific or otherwise.

Mysteriously yours,
Alex

I saw a dead sun star at Redondo, flopping around right by the stairs. That was about 3 weekends ago.

Reading the article... Wow, horrible!!

From the recent REEF PNW Critterwatchers newsletter:
Keep your eyes on the stars!

You may have been hearing about the recent seastar dieoff in some areas of BC. There have also been reports of sick or dying seastars in some areas in Washington as well. Scientists are working hard to determine the cause, but need your help.

The Vancouver Aquarium has set up a web form for divers to report both numbers of healthy AND sick-looking seastars.
You can find the link to report what you observe here:
http://www.vanaqua.org/act/research/sea-stars

Seastar expert Neil McDaniel, (website http://www.seastarsofthepacificnorthwest.info) has graciously allowed us to post his photos showing the progression of the disease over a short period of a few weeks. This can give you an idea of what you're looking for. View Neil's photos here:
http://pnwscuba.smugmug.com/Diving/Seas ... g-Syndrome

Remember, the Vancouver Aquarium wants to know the location of both healthy AND sick-looking seastars.
http://www.vanaqua.org/act/research/sea-stars

Feel free to pass this on to your dive buddies, club members, and other interested divers willing to help!

- Janna

I will be heading up to port Townsend next week and I let you know what I find. I did see a couple the last time I was up there.

Here's another article.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-5 ... alifornia/

And another one:
http://themarinedetective.com/2013/11/1 ... e-pacific/

- Janna

There was another on in West Seattle blog:

http://westseattleblog.com/2013/11/vide ... le-shores/

Nice job Laura!

Greetings,

Thanks to everyone that posted background articles on this situation. Here's another one:

http://www.reef2rainforest.com/2013/11/ ... ver-again/

This one has some history and science that describes why this sucks even if you don't care about the stars.

Disasterously yours,

Alex

We did two dives at Cove 2 last night and we saw about 25 - 30 dead sea stars around the Honey Bear and in the shallows between the Honey Bear and the divesite entry point. There were also several others that appeared to be in distress. I can't remember seeing one healthy looking sea star in the entire area.

As a counterpoint, I did a dive at Alki Junkyard last night, and only saw 5 stars in the very early stages of the disease out of maybe 22-23 total. I've sent reports to the folks at the Vancouver Aquarium and UC Santa Cruz.

It's interesting that two nearby sites can be very different in terms of how hard they've been hit, though the two sites are pretty different current and bottom-wise.

Agreed with Billz. We dove Cove2 the same night and I did not see a single healthy star.

the entire Cove2 was littered with dead, dying decayed sea stars.. most of them shed their arms and the arms are melting as does the bodies.

very very sad to see.. the honey bear had some of them purple ones hanging by one arm as they are melting and dying..

very sad indeed..

Wed did Sunrise today. Every Sun Star we saw was dead or dying. Pretty sad......





:(

Dan

Most sea stars were in good shape at sund rock. Penders did point out a sickly looking star. I thought it was a Velcro star, but I'll have to confirm with mike.

The sea stars at Keystone all looked pretty healthy today.

Probably at least 30% of the sea stars we saw at Cove 2 yesterday were either dead or well on their way. I counted at least four different varieties.

Cove 1, just from 2 weeks ago, is a massive starfish die off, all around the dolphin.

And just from 2 weeks ago. Its really bad out there.

I dove Sunrise today, and it was pretty sad. I saw three types that were definitely impacted--sunflower stars, Stimpson's (a.k.a. striped sunstars), and another type of sunstar. I couldn't be sure if they were Northern or Orange as they were colorless and a bit too far gone.

I'd estimate 50% of sunflower stars that were at the site were affected. However, that's 50% of what is left of them! They were noticeably absent. I'd say around 25-30% of what is usually there.

I saw various stages of the syndrome. From just beginning to nothing left but goo to arms everywhere looking like they had exploded. It was awful. I am worried.......

so is this a disease? .. or is this Fukushima radiation ?