Photo: Jennifer Adler.
Three-year-old sunflower stars explore the kelp forest for the first time. They come in a rainbow of colors but are all the same species.
The kind of starfish or sea star I recall seeing as a child on Fire Island is the echinaster serpentarius, I remember how after a big storm they would wash up on the shore by the thousands. We children in our ignorance would collect handfuls and dry them out at home. We imagined there were plenty more in the sea.
Now we know that sea stars — and their habitat — are in grave danger. Today’s article explains more,
John Ryan writes at National Public Radio, “On a spring morning so blustery that the National Weather Service issued a small craft advisory, a Samish Indian Nation research boat, called the Chinook (Yómech), set out from Anacortes, Washington, just east of the San Juan Islands.
“A team of divers crammed into the cabin as the small craft bounced and slammed across Rosario Strait. They were on their way to pick up precious cargo: 20 endangered sunflower stars, raised by hand in a lab at Friday Harbor on San Juan Island.
“Sunflower stars are one of the Pacific Ocean’s most endangered sea creatures. For the past year, University of Washington researchers have worked closely with the Samish Indian Nation to bring this 24-armed creature back from the brink of extinction after a vast underwater pandemic nearly wiped it out.
“The choppy waters of Rosario Strait were only the latest obstacle in the tribe’s effort to bring sunflower stars back to traditional Samish territory.
” ‘I’ve had dreams about this day. I’ve had nightmares about this day,’ said Samish Nation biologist Sam Strauss. ‘Many things have already gone wrong that I didn’t anticipate, and I’m sure there will be a couple more.’
“The stars were supposed to be turned loose [October 2025]. Then divers found the deadly sea-star wasting disease — the cause of the species’ near-annihilation — surging throughout the San Juans. They called off the release. Six months later, it was back on.
“Sunflower stars can grow more than 3 feet wide and are the fastest of all sea stars. They cruise the seabed at up to 5 feet per minute in search of sea urchins or sea cucumbers to grab for a meal.
“They’re considered a keystone species, whose presence or absence can reshape a whole ecosystem. But the speedy predators have been unable to outrun a wasting disease that’s killed billions of sea stars. It took researchers a decade to pinpoint the Vibrio bacteria behind the disease that dissolved sea stars into goo. Researchers say ocean heat waves, amplified by climate change, helped the bacteria grow.
” ‘We definitely have lost a lot of sea stars,’ University of Washington research scientist Jason Hodin said. “We’ve lost 90% of our sunflower stars, we think.’
“Hodin runs the sea star lab at the university’s Friday Harbor Laboratories. ‘This was a really, really big outbreak,’ Hodin. “It spread from northern Mexico all the way to Alaska, affecting dozens and dozens of sea star species.’ No species was harder hit than the sunflower star.
“International scientists declared the once-common species critically endangered. …
“Inside the sea star lab, tanks of filtered seawater harbor hundreds of sunflower stars, from microscopic larvae up to adults as big as stop signs.
“The researchers have figured out by trial and error how to breed these little-studied animals. They’ve also cured some of them when wasting disease got into the lab. …
“Sunflower stars were never a big part of Samish culture, unlike salmon. … But the stars have played a supporting role in Samish culture by protecting kelp. Many kelp forests on the West Coast have been stripped bare by sea urchins. Sunflower stars prey on urchins, which protects kelp. …
“A dozen labs up and down the West Coast are currently raising sunflower stars, with small releases planned later this year in California and Oregon. It is unlikely biologists will ever raise anything close to the 5 billion sunflower stars lost to wasting disease.
“But they hope to raise enough of them to point the species, and kelp forests, toward recovery.
More details at NPR, here. No paywall.
