Northwest Dive Club

H20doctor wrote:so is this a disease? .. or is this Fukushima radiation ?

The effects of the tsunami (radiation, chemicals, etc) was one theory that was brought up at our after dive lunch....

i did some research today and found out that this is also happening on the east coast as well...also found out that starfish die off happened in california in the 1980's..

Cove 1 pilings...

So far, Whidbey looks healthy, found only couple Sunflower and Pink short-spined stars, one Ochre star and one Mottled star.

H20doctor wrote:so is this a disease? .. or is this Fukushima radiation ?

Please, please, please... Fukushima, while bad, is not this apocalyptic event that the media has led you to believe. Dilution is the solution...


http://news.discovery.com/tech/videos/f ... -video.htm

Did kvi sat. it's a mess more dead star then I've seen anywhere. Pieces and parts scattered everywhere. Had a few over at the barges, but nothing like KVI

Titlow was really, really, really bad today. :(

enchantmentdivi wrote:Titlow was really, really, really bad today. :(

Strange- Day Island Wall, which is right aroung the corner from Titlow, wasn't that bad. We ran across three or so dead stars in the shallows but saw several large apparently healthy ones on the wall. I wonder if the high current helps keep the stars healthy?

Were were at Sunrise on Saturday Nov 23

The shallow areas, 0-80ft, mostly every star was dead or duying.. weirdly enough the deeper we went, the healthier they were.

at about 140-150 they were 99% healthy and the deeper stars were HUGE!

This is consistent from what the people at US Santa Cruz told me after reporting the above observations..

deeper = healthier ?

A "band" of diseased stars is consistent with what Jeff C. from Seattle Aquarium has described as well.

fishb0y wrote:

H20doctor wrote:so is this a disease? .. or is this Fukushima radiation ?

Please, please, please... Fukushima, while bad, is not this apocalyptic event that the media has led you to believe. Dilution is the solution...


http://news.discovery.com/tech/videos/f ... -video.htm

maybe you need to do a google search... here is a site with links to back up the info on how we are being effected Here on the west coast.. this is one of many sites that have reported the effects of fukushima
http://thetruthwins.com/archives/28-sig ... -fukushima

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmx4twCK3_I

I fully understand the hysteria surrounding Fukushima, but I'm curious if there was a similar starfish die-off after all of the nuclear bomb testing in the Pacific, Chernobyl or any of the filter media flushes the Navy did in the 50's and 60's.

I'm not trying to downplay the seriousness of Fukushima, but I am getting concerned with some of the hysteria surrounding it. Full disclosure, I worked with nuclear power for 14 years.

We did a dive yesterday at Muk oil dock. Dead or dying sea stars were everywhere. However, it was not just limited to the sea stars. There were also dead sea anemones all over the place as well. Also lots of dead blue mussels all over the ground as well. As far as the mussels go, this is not that abnormal after a large storm has dislodged them from the pilings, but since there has not been a large sea in the last few days.....

Really disheartening whatever the cause.

Redondo last night was interesting.. all the stars we saw from 0-60ft that were still alive were 90% healthy..

None that i could see was in final stages of decay.

I am almost afraid to say it but this week in PT things looked pretty normal. I am hoping that holds. Maybe it's because we are receiving fresh cold water from the straits. I sure hope so.

Possession Point - still looks OK, all species look healthy so far ...

Vancouver aquarium has a new interface for their data collection.

Download the spreadsheet, fill it out, upload it along with the option for a bunch of pictures!

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If that seems like too much work, please at very least take a picture of the beach (where you just dove) with your smartphone and upload it via Instagram/Twitter/Facebook with one of the following 3 hashtags. Please upload the image from the beach, and make sure geo-tagging is on.

#sickstarfish for sick/dead/dying/decaying
#nosickstarfish for a site that looks completely healthy

and for the beach walking/tide pool contingent, as we know it is sometimes difficult to tell health of sea stars that have washed up on beach or are in tide pools, we will let the experts sort that out... take a picture of it and upload with hashtag
#beachstarfish

Please keep posting or submitting your starfish updates... Whatever it is, is still spreading and our observations are key to see how sites change over time. Recovery of sites will be important as well. Even if you don't want to take the time to fill out the Vancouver survey, remember that posting your reports here on NWDC is helpful because at least it gets your observations out where the scientists can see them.

Post:

Site, depth of survey, number of healthy, number of sick (or a percentage of sick) photo's if you've got them or video

Just an update from Whidbey Island. WA.
At the moment, it looks like we have avoided a mass die-off so far.
December 4. Keystone Jetty - one Sunflower dead. Rest of sea stars present - healthy.
December 7. Langley Harbor. Sunflower stars- One category 3 and one 4. Two Ochre stars - one category 1 and one category 2. One Giant pink star - cat. 1 All others healthy.
December 9 & 11 . Possession Point - all stars are well.
December 13. Holmes Harbor. All stars healthy, although less of them .

Lots of puddles and pieces of seastars at Redondo today. We maxed out at 80 fsw or so and saw them throughout the dive, although most were in the 20-60 fsw range. I also saw several healthy ones, so there's that.

Hood Canal, Sund Rock MCA healthy, no melting stars

i saw 3 melted sunflower stars on the drift dive, all others were healthy... i did mukilteo fuel pier yesterday and only saw 1, but in the stagnant areas in the bay north i guess there are more dead... there seems to be a pattern of low water exchanges and death... i see more death of the stars in areas that are non current sites where the bottoms is silty..etc..etc..

Lots of sea stars with wasting disease at Z's Reef yesterday. All stages from pretzel arms to just a puddle of goo.

last night, cove 1