Mass Starfish Die-Off - Pacific Coast

[Mergie Master]

“Alarming” mass die-off of starfish in areas along Canada’s Pacific coast — “They’ve disintegrated, now there’s just goo left” — “Appeared to melt” — “Single arms clinging to rock faces, tube feet still moving” — Similar reports as far away as California

Canadian Press, Oct. 7, 2013: Vancouver Aquarium ‘alarmed’ at mass die-off of starfish on B.C. ocean floor [...] aquarium staff don’t know just how far-reaching the “alarming” epidemic has been, and whether this and other sea star species will recover. “They’re gone. It’s amazing,” said Donna Gibbs, a research diver and taxonomist on the aquarium’s Howe Sound Research and Conservation group. “Whatever hit them, it was like wildfire and just wiped them out.” [...] Aquarium staff don’t know the cause because they have had trouble gathering specimens for testing, as starfish that looked healthy in the ocean turned up as goo at the lab. [...] “We’re just not sure yet if it’s all the same thing,” Gibbs said. “They’re dying so fast.” [...] The collaboration came about after a graduate student collected starfish for a research project and then watched as they “appeared to melt” in her tank. [...]

Global News, Oct. 3, 2013: [...] starfish wasting or completely disintegrating ever since early September. “Now they are gone. They have disintegrated, and now there is just goo left,” says research diver and taxonomist Donna Gibbs. “So we are trying to see as much as we can really fast and get reports from divers in other areas to see how widespread this is.” […] “It is shocking to see them all dead. They are just gone. And, are they coming back? We want them back. B.C. is known for its sea stars. We have more species here than anywhere else in the world.” [...]

National Geographic, Sept. 9, 2013: [...] “It really struck a chord in other divers who were seeing it on Facebook and social media, both locally and as far away as California, who had been seeing similar things,” [marine biologist Jonathan] Martin said. [...] Martin wrote to invertebrate expert Christopher Mah, a researcher at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. [...] he said: “(The starfish) seem to waste away, ‘deflate’ a little, and then just … disintegrate. The arms just detach, and the central disc falls apart. It seems to happen rapidly, and not just dead animals undergoing decomposition, as I observed single arms clinging to the rock faces, tube feet still moving, with the skin split, gills flapping in the current. [...] we did our second dive in an area closed to fishing, and in absolutely amazing numbers. The bottom from about 20 to 50 feet [6 to 15 meters] was absolutely littered with arms, oral discs, tube feet, gonads and gills … it was kind of creepy.” [...] Yet what’s especially alarming to Martin, Mah, and other marine biologists is the fact that this die-off might not be restricted to P. helianthoides or the northern Pacific. [...] Fisheries and Oceans Canada is worried enough that they’ve asked Martin to go back out and collect samples for them to test in the lab. [...]

Watch the broadcast here

See also: Biologist: Pacific herring in Canada bleeding from eyeballs, faces, fins, tails -- I've never seen fish looking this bad -- All 100 examined were bloody -- Officials informed of hemorrhaging soon after 3/11 -- Gov't ignoring problem (PHOTO)

[surfcock]

They must have lost their government subsidized food due to our shutdown.

[HARV]

Reckon starfish is off the menu this weekend.

[JABIII]

[Whaler_Dave]

Damn! That picture ain't so purty. Makes one think what else is gone.... or glowing?

[JABIII]

"On July 22, 2013, more than two years after the incident, it was revealed that the plant is leaking radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean, something long suspected by local fishermen and independent investigators. TEPCO had previously denied that this was happening and the current situation has prompted Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe to order the government to step in. On August 20, in a further incident, it was announced that 300 tonnes (300 long tons; 330 short tons) of heavily contaminated water had leaked from a storage tank. The water was radioactive enough to be hazardous to nearby staff, and the leak was assessed as Level 3 on the International Nuclear Event Scale. On August 26, the government decided to take over running the emergency measures to tackle the radioactive water leaks, reflecting a lack of confidence in TEPCO. A study by scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and GEOMAR found that after six to nine years, contaminations levels in Japanese waters should have declined to less than double pre-Fukushima levels. By the same time, however, the contamination cloud will span almost the entire North Pacific, leading to peak concentrations off the North American west coast an order-of-magnitude higher than that"

[HARV]

Someone 'splain them colors?

[JABIII]

Someone 'splain them colors?

Since I assume the Pacific currents are circular and don't run straightline from Japan to Chile, you ask a good question.

[Whaler_Dave]

Maybe the drift of the "contamination Cloud"...

But again, those are pretty straight lines....

[HARV]

Well I was wonderin if there'd be an overall warming benefit from this nuclear front.

[JABIII]

I am hoping it will push all the ducks out of Washington, Oregon, and California to the East coast.

[HARV]

Might be near enough cooked by the time you get them.Sure is a crying shame how we treat the ol gal aint it?

[Turd Ferguson]

I am hoping it will push all the ducks out of Washington, Oregon, and California to the East coast.

[JABIII]

Might be near enough cooked by the time you get them.Sure is a crying shame how we treat the ol gal aint it?

Yessir.

[Highstrung]

So that's how they found Easter Island..