Starfish are making a comeback on the US’ west coast, four years after a mysterious syndrome killed millions of them.
Between 2013 and 2014, Sea Star Wasting Syndrome hit sea stars from British Columbia to Mexico. The starfish would develop lesions and then disintegrate, their arms turning into blobs of goo.
The cause is unclear, but researchers said it might be a virus.
However, the species is rebounding. Sea stars are being spotted in southern California tide pools and elsewhere, the Orange County Register said on Tuesday.
“They are coming back, big time,” Cabrillo Marine Aquarium aquarist Darryl Deleske said.
“It’s a huge difference,” Deleske said. “A couple of years ago, you wouldn’t find any. I dove all the way as far as Canada, specifically looking for sea stars and found not a single one.”
Similar die-offs of starfish on the west coast were reported in the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s, but the latest outbreak was far larger and more widespread, a report by researchers at the University of Santa Cruz said.
Beginning with ochre stars off Washington state, the disease spread, killing off mottled stars, leather stars, sunflower stars, rainbows and six-armed stars. It hit southern California by December 2013.
“When it did [arrive], you just started to see them melt everywhere,” Deleske said. “You’d see an arm here, an arm there.”
The recovery has been promising. Four adult sea stars, each about 20cm long, were spotted this month at Crystal Cove State Park in Newport Beach.
“It’s a treasure we always hope to find,” Crystal Cove Conservancy education coordinator Kaitlin Magliano said.
“We lost all of them,” she said. “It’s good to see we have some surviving and thriving. Maybe the next generation will be more resilient.”
The stars are not out of danger yet. The wasting syndrome never completely disappeared in northern and central California and it has reappeared in the Salish Sea region of Washington state, a report by the University of Santa Cruz said last month.
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