Sea Star Wasting Disease

Up late working on an overflow box and listening to Coast to Coast AM...learned about this. This is happening up and down the Pacific Coast. Even in public aquaria (one that are continuously fed untreated ocean water).



http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...story.html


This kind of stuff has happened before, but usually limited to a single species and in warm waters. This is happening in cold waters (even Alaska waters), affects at least 7 species, and the mortality rate is nearly 100%.


On Coast to Coast there was one guy on there that was a life long diver who said on one day he saw about 50% affected, 20 days later 100% dead. Public aquaria are getting 100% mortality. No one seems to be able to put a finger on it. Virus, bacteria, pathogen, nuclear contamination (Fukashima), etc - not ruled out, no smoking gun thought.


I just hope this doesn't end up affecting the areas where this is occurring in similar fashion to the Diadema mass die off. Sounds like a harbinger of change.

 

No sea stars are dying off Japan's coast though.