Sea Star Wasting: "Largest Mortality Event For Marine Diseases We've Seen"
EDIT
Its the largest mortality event for marine diseases weve seen, Harvell said. It affects over 20 species on our coast and its been causing catastrophic mortality.
Scientists have been working for months to find out whats causing the massive die-off and now Harvell and others have evidence that an infectious disease caused by a bacteria or virus may be at the root of the problem. The disease, they say, could be compounded by warming waters, which put the sea stars under stress, making them more vulnerable to the pathogen.
Harvell has studied marine diseases for 20 years. She had thought that the syndrome might spare Washingtons San Juan Islands. Until recently, pockets of cold water and swift currents seem to have protected the local sea star population from the epidemic. But with the arrival of summer, the waters around the San Juan archipelago have warmed. From what Harvell and her team see as they survey beaches, theres not much time for these starfish or sea stars, as scientists prefer to call them since theyre not fish.
Harvell crouches in the sand and points at a withering orange pisaster ochraceus, or ochre star, one of the most common sea stars found in the intertidal zones of the West Coast. One arm is curled over on itself, another hangs by a thread of gnarled flesh. The whole arm is flat. It looks dried out, wasted, thin, deflated. Sea stars are not supposed to look like that, Harvell said. My expectation is that within the next month all of the stars will die.
EDIT
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/scientists-zero-whats-causing-starfish-die-offs/