Saving Seafood

Scientists say they have solved the mystery of what killed more than 5 billion sea stars

August 5, 2025 — Scientists say they have at last solved the mystery of what killed more than 5 billion sea stars off the Pacific coast of North America in a decade-long epidemic.

Sea stars – often known as starfish – typically have five arms and some species sport up to 24 arms. They range in color from solid orange to tapestries of orange, purple, brown and green.

Starting in 2013, a mysterious sea star wasting disease sparked a mass die-off from Mexico to Alaska. The epidemic has devastated more than 20 species and continues today. Worst hit was a species called the sunflower sea star, which lost around 90% of its population in the outbreak’s first five years.

“It’s really quite gruesome,” said marine disease ecologist Alyssa Gehman at the Hakai Institute in British Columbia, Canada, who helped pinpoint the cause.

Healthy sea stars have “puffy arms sticking straight out,” she said. But the wasting disease causes them to grow lesions and “then their arms actually fall off.”

Read the full article at the Associated Press

Lower oxygen level in oceans could be more prominent by 2030s

April 29, 2016 — Reduction in the amount of oxygen present in oceans is already evident in some parts of the world. But as per a new study, the loss of ocean oxygen would be more prevalent in larger sections of oceans between 2030 and 2040. Currently, climate experts can’t say for sure if the fluctuation in the oxygen level is due to natural causes or it is due to climate change.

Decline in ocean oxygen will leave fish, crabs, squid, sea stars and other marine life to face struggle in breathing. Matthew Long from National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) was of the view that loss oxygen in the ocean has been considered as one of the serious side effects of warming atmosphere.

Professor Long mentioned, “Since oxygen concentrations in the ocean naturally vary depending on variations in winds and temperature at the surface, it has been challenging to attribute any de-oxygenation to climate change”.

Scientists have explained that warming surface waters absorb less oxygen. The oxygen that is absorbed faces more trouble in travelling deeper into the ocean. The researchers have used the NCAR-based Community Earth System Model in order to study the impact of climate change.

Read the full story at Maine News Online

Warming Oceans Are Turning Sea Stars to Goo and Killing Lobsters, Scientists Say

February 17, 2016 — Warming waters in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans have increased the prevalence of diseases that are turning sea stars to mush and killing lobsters by burrowing under their shells and causing lesions, two new studies say. The outbreaks are so lethal, according to a biologist involved in both studies, that at least one species of sea star has vanished off the coasts of Washington and British Columbia and the lobster fishery, already decimated in southern New England, will likely be threatened in Maine.

In the Pacific, a wasting disease is blamed for the disappearance of the technicolor sunflower sea star. It’s also laying waste to the ochre sea star that scientists at Cornell University, the University of Puget Sound and Northeastern University, as well as other institutions, examined for the latest research. Their reports were published this week.

Numerous climate studies have shown that the oceans are warming. In addition, 30 percent of the carbon released into the atmosphere ends up there, leading to acidification that’s further destroying coral, shell life and other organisms.

The sea-star study was led by Morgan E. Eisenlord, an evolutionary biologist at Cornell, and published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Both in a laboratory and at 16 sites on the San Juan Islands off Washington’s coast, researchers determined that ochre sea stars gradually became sicker as water temperatures rose slightly. Conditions simulated in the lab confirmed what the scientists observed in the field.  As temperatures rose, the disease became more prevalent, and adult ochres died within days. The disease, plus death, was more prominent in temperatures between 54 degrees and 66 degrees Fahrenheit. For the adults, the risk of death was 18 percent higher at 66 degrees.

Read the full story at The Washington Post