Posted on 12/28/2017 5:29:22 PM PST by nickcarraway
For the past four years, a mysterious syndrome has been killing millions of sea stars along the West Coast, turning the five-armed critters into piles of goo. But now, the sea stars appear to be making a comeback, according to news reports.
In Southern California and elsewhere, the palm-size sea stars are showing up in record numbers, compared with the past few years, The Orange County Register reportedon Tuesday (Dec. 26).
"They are coming back, big time," Darryl Deleske, an aquarist for the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium in San Pedro, told The Orange County Register. "It’s a huge difference … 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." [In Photos: Sick Sea Stars Turn to Goo]
For the past four years, a mysterious syndrome has been killing millions of sea stars along the West Coast, turning the five-armed critters into piles of goo. But now, the sea stars appear to be making a comeback, according to news reports.
In Southern California and elsewhere, the palm-size sea stars are showing up in record numbers, compared with the past few years, The Orange County Register reportedon Tuesday (Dec. 26).
"They are coming back, big time," Darryl Deleske, an aquarist for the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium in San Pedro, told The Orange County Register. "It’s a huge difference … 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." [In Photos: Sick Sea Stars Turn to Goo]
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
What’s the half life of the isotopes from Fukushima?
Just askin’...
Sea stars? I call them starfish.
That was my first thought, starfish.
Starzilla!!!!!
Sea Stars? People on the west coast have called them Starfish for a really long time. Must be an east coast thing.
Obama admin was killing starfish. Trump won just in time.
No, they’re starfish here in the Northeast as well.
It’s almost as if nature regulates itself. The population of a predator such as “sea stars” - starfish, as was - declines because of some factor. Then the population of what they ate explodes. Then the remaining population of the predator experiences unusual growth.
Like, DUH.
You beat me to it. Nature operates in cycles. Whoulda thunk it?
I’m just a housewife with a degree in Management from the 1980s ... but I know this stuff. Being a journalist obviously takes a special kind of stupid, where you can start each day in a numinous NOW in which nothing has ever happened before.
All I have is a degree of skepticism. ;-)
My kids have been involved in science competitions for years. Although there’s a certain overlay of global-warming claptrap, there’s much more basic fact about how things work.
Starzilla!!!!!
—
It’d make for the world’s slowest monster movie.
“Look! It’s Starzilla! Walk!”
It’s Sea Stars
Seastar Ebola....ran its course and population rebounded.
As well, the Abalone are really doing well too - and not just little ones either, 8 and 10 inch I saw yesterday- DOZENS in a single crack in the reef
It was just a few years ago that starfish were destroying clam/bivalve populations and were considered a scourge. Then something comes along that turns them to goo and people begin to worry about them. It’s always something.
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