March 11, 2015 — With millions of starfish dying all along the West Coast, Washington state Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives say it’s time for Congress to intervene and find out why.
The outbreak, first noticed in the state by rangers in Olympic National Park in June 2013, has hit 20 species of starfish, also known as sea stars.
After getting lesions on their bodies, the sea stars begin curling up and soon lose their legs, shriveling up and disintegrating into mush.
Researchers fear the epidemic may be the result of a virus caused by climate change, with the disease showing its fastest progression in warmer ocean waters.
“There has never been an outbreak of disease in natural populations of animals that I know that’s been this large,” said Drew Harvell, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Cornell University who’s been studying the starfish deaths on the San Juan Islands, in northwestern Washington state.
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