Dissolving starfish in the Puget Sound

[Peter_C]

I wonder if the Monterey Bay Aquarium controls PH? I would assume so. Since the water comes from the same place (Although heavily filtered) where we are experiencing a die off, that seems like a pretty good test bed to start with.

 

[DiverLaura]

The sciency types up at Friday Harbor labs, WWU, UCSC / MARINe network are looking for divers willing to survey a site or two with some regularity to help map the progression and impact of the ongoing Sea Star mortality event. (we need to map healthy sites as well so when/if they get hit, there is solid baseline data from which to track the disease progression)

If you and your buddy are looking for something to "do" underwater, or your club or dive shop has been looking for a meaningful project that is part of something larger, here is your chance!!!

Attached is a PDF of the protocol and included in that protocol grid that can be printed on waterproof paper or a laminated copy made for use with a grease pencil, or copied onto any standard slate.

Once you've collected the data, scan it or take a picture of it and send to Melissa Miner if in Washington or Rani Gaddam if in California.

The data collected is super important, and even though they don't know exactly what is causing the disease, learning as much as they can about is imperative.

 

[Hank49]

The thing is, even when they/you do figure out what the cause is, what are you going to do about it?

Not to be cynical, but it's the ocean. Hard to control what is happening out there.

A similar thing happened in the Caribbean a few years back with the black sea urchins. They all started dying. They are still in very low numbers. I've been contacted by some university folks from the US to help set up a lab out on one of the atholls to grow larvae and release juveniles. Sounds like a great idea.....or is it? The released juveniles, if they come from the same stocks captured here, may die also. Or, if you bring in broodstocks from.....Florida?...or somewhere, you might bring another pathogen. It goes on.....it's complicated.

A lot of noble efforts can go terribly wrong. It's sad to see things like this happen but be careful planning a rescue mission.

I just went through an extensive effort to determine if the newly invasive tiger shrimp (Penaeus monodon) that we are now catching in our Penaeus vannamei ponds here are virus free. Spent about $10,000 in doing so. Fortunately, they are clean of all known shrimp viruses. We dodged a bullet on that one. We're now turning this farm into a tiger shrimp farm from the 18 that we captured over the last two years. Fast growing buggars....Serious money to be made.

 

[DiverLaura]

I totally understand where you are coming from. Considering we are stuck on the sidelines watching this go down as I type, its mostly about understanding something about how it spreads, how fast it impacts different species, etc... Even if we can't stop it, we can learn. Its a great opportunity divers who want to be involved in citizen science.

There are still questions to be answered, is it something that came in on ballast water, is it a latent bug, is it made worse by pollution, etc...

I've heard about the urchin die off as it is cited regularly by Professor Harvell who is part of this project.

The thing is, even when they/you do figure out what the cause is, what are you going to do about it?

Not to be cynical, but it's the ocean. Hard to control what is happening out there.

A similar thing happened in the Caribbean a few years back with the black sea urchins. They all started dying. They are still in very low numbers. I've been contacted by some university folks from the US to help set up a lab out on one of the atholls to grow larvae and release juveniles. Sounds like a great idea.....or is it? The released juveniles, if they come from the same stocks captured here, may die also. Or, if you bring in broodstocks from.....Florida?...or somewhere, you might bring another pathogen. It goes on.....it's complicated.

A lot of noble efforts can go terribly wrong. It's sad to see things like this happen but be careful planning a rescue mission.

I just went through an extensive effort to determine if the newly invasive tiger shrimp (Penaeus monodon) that we are now catching in our Penaeus vannamei ponds here are virus free. Spent about $10,000 in doing so. Fortunately, they are clean of all known shrimp viruses. We dodged a bullet on that one. We're now turning this farm into a tiger shrimp farm from the 18 that we captured over the last two years. Fast growing buggars....Serious money to be made.

 

[DiverLaura]

A few articles/video on the wasting disease

Why are starfish dying off the Pacific Coast?

Northwest Starfish Experiments Give Scientists Clues To Mysterious Mass Die-offs · EarthFix · KUOW

Citizen Scientists Asked To Help Search For #SickStarfish · EarthFix · KUOW

 

[uwxplorer]

Just saw what looked like a recently dismembered starfish at the Underwater Arch at Anacapa Island, SoCal. Shot a GoPro video of it, so that experts can gauge whether it's wasting disease or something else...

 

[Shaka Doug]

F U K U S H I M A ?????? Naaaaa.... Just a wasting thing that happens every now and then.... maybe try taking some radiation samples along the coast? I mean since Fuku is still spewing 300 tons of radioactive water into the ocean every single day since more than 1000 days ago.... maybe sooner or later it will reach you folks? Just a thought.

 

[gcarter]

F U K U S H I M A ?????? Naaaaa.... Just a wasting thing that happens every now and then.... maybe try taking some radiation samples along the coast? I mean since Fuku is still spewing 300 tons of radioactive water into the ocean every single day since more than 1000 days ago.... maybe sooner or later it will reach you folks? Just a thought.

All The Best, Scientifically Verified, Information on Fukushima Impacts | Deep Sea News

10) Dr. Chris Mah is a researcher at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and one of the world’s leading experts on starfish and echinoderms in general. Chris’s post here at DSN debunks the claim that the starfish dying on the west coast have anything to do with the Fukushima incident. Favorite Quote: “If there were waves of Fukushima radiation pouring onto the coast-and “melting” all the starfish as some folks would suggest, EVERYTHING would be dead. Not just the sea stars. Note also that all the divers involved in these surveys have reported NO ill effects.”

---------- Post added February 11th, 2014 at 12:44 AM ----------

And, from the linked post Three Reasons Why Fukushima Radiation Has Nothing to Do with Starfish Wasting Syndrome | Deep Sea News

Here, I continue this theme. Addressing a concern that has been brought up by many. But really, three simple observations discount any direct relationship….​

1. Starfish Wasting Disease/Syndrome (SWD/SWS) pre-Dates Fukushima by 3 to 15 years. This is probably the most self-evident of reasons. One of the earliest accounts of starfish wasting disease was recorded from Southern California (Channel Islands) in 1997 (pdf). The account of SWS in British Columbia was first documented by Bates et al. in2009, and their data was collected in 2008. Fukushima? March 2011.
2. Starfish Wasting Syndrome Occurs on the East Coast as well as the Pacific. Many of the accounts alleging a Fukushima connection to Starfish Wasting Syndrome forget that there are also accounts of SWS on the east coast of the United States affecting the asteriid Asterias rubens. There is no evidence (or apparent mechanism) for Fukushima radiation to have reached the east coast and therefore the Fukushima idea is again not supported.
3. No other life in these regions seems to have been affected. If we watch the original British Columbia Pycnopodia die-off videos, and the later Washington state die-off vidoes, one cannot help but notice that other than the starfish, EVERYTHING else remains alive. Fish. Seaweed, encrusting animals. etc.

 

[JohnN]

The sciency types up at Friday Harbor labs, WWU, UCSC / MARINe network are looking for divers willing to survey a site or two with some regularity to help map the progression and impact of the ongoing Sea Star mortality event. (we need to map healthy sites as well so when/if they get hit, there is solid baseline data from which to track the disease progression)

If you and your buddy are looking for something to "do" underwater, or your club or dive shop has been looking for a meaningful project that is part of something larger, here is your chance!!!

Attached is a PDF of the protocol and included in that protocol grid that can be printed on waterproof paper or a laminated copy made for use with a grease pencil, or copied onto any standard slate.

Once you've collected the data, scan it or take a picture of it and send to Melissa Miner if in Washington or Rani Gaddam if in California.

The data collected is super important, and even though they don't know exactly what is causing the disease, learning as much as they can about is imperative.

A very non-scientific data point for you. Two dives in Hood Canal today, Gobi Gardens and Pinnacle. All starfish and sea stars are quite healthy, no sign of anything abnormal.

 

[uwxplorer]

Science magazine had an interesting piece on this in its May 2nd edition (http://m.sciencemag.org/content/344/6183/464
[*]) and as a matter of fact made its cover with it.
Apparently the cause still remains unknown (although significant research efforts are being invested by a network of scientists) and the phenomenon now extends along the whole West Coast and seems to be spreading East.
Dire scenarios of ecosystem collapse appear possible, although similar disappearance of starfish species has happened recently (sun stars were almost wiped out from Southern California in the 90's).
Pretty depressing stuff overall...
I saw my first case (I think) at Anacapa a few months ago (below) and find myself counting starfish while I dive, getting worried whenever I don't see any...

[video=youtube_share;0h4V3lzNiDM]http://youtu.be/0h4V3lzNiDM[/video]


[*] abstract only, the rest is behind a paywall, but easily accessible from a UC campus library for instance