Northwest Dive Club

http://www.timescolonist.com/news/world ... -1.2249565
Anyone have any more evidence that starfish might be coming back?

We saw a few young Sunflower Stars at Muk last night that appeared to be healthy. Keeping fingers crossed...


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We have been seeing some smaller sunflower stars, leather stars and ochres in mid and northern Puget Sound, but the threat still looms.

A few friends of mine came back from a UW marine lab open house and confirmed that the virus does seem to be sensitive to water temperature. As the waters warm up, we can expect to see the virus start impacting the same set of sea star species that were vulnerable to it before: sunflower star, rainbow star, giant pink star, giant star, mottled star, ochre star, sun star, leather star, vermilion star, six-armed stars, bat star and a few more.

The University of California Santa Cruz has put together a very informative website on the wasting syndrome:
http://www.eeb.ucsc.edu/pacificrockyint ... r-wasting/

Wow, thank you for that.

The staff at the Seattle Aquarium are involved in the research on the syndrome. The vet was interviewed on Science Friday recently and talked about the baby bloom. The research has indicated that young starfish are not as susceptible to the disease until they get to a certain size, then they die quickly. She said we also had a bloom last year that died away.

The session has two interviewees, the SA veterinarian is in the last half. Her interview is here:
http://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/w ... r-mystery/

We counted 3 sub-hand sized pycno at alki pipeline a couple days ago, the biggest of the three was starting to look like it was getting the sickness. We've been seeing exactly what the Seattle Aquarium staff noted.

The whole thing just really bums me out. Even if this virus disappeared tomorrow, or the young can mutate to combat the virus, it still takes a starfish 2 years to reach sexual maturity and several generations would have to pass for populations and ecosystems to return to normal, if that's even possible. I feel like I've taken such advantage of their presence my entire life.

Thanks for the information guys

Over the last year or so I've seen several times when we had a bunch or quarter sized juvies at local sites.

Unfortunately that has not seemed to translate to the mid teenage size, let alone the adults.

Until we see the juvies that have dropped out of the plankton stream survive to adulthood I'm afraid the virus is still holding sway.

Tom Nic wrote:Over the last year or so I've seen several times when we had a bunch or quarter sized juvies at local sites.

Unfortunately that has not seemed to translate to the mid teenage size, let alone the adults.

Until we see the juvies that have dropped out of the plankton stream survive to adulthood I'm afraid the virus is still holding sway.

Yeah, I've seen adult stars and gone back to the same location a day or so later to see them melting away. I think unless our waters cool, or if there's the possibility of new generations (and many at that) being able to combat this virus, I think you're very right.