The sea star wasting disease is estimated to have killed over 5.75 billion sunflower sea stars, according to the document. The roadmap was completed in collaboration with The Nature Conservancy, National Marine Fisheries Service, and state agencies in California, Oregon, Washington and Alaska.

Here’s one that’s happening right in front of our eyes.” “At the global scale, we’re recognizing that the impacts of humans have had major impacts on populations and lots of extinctions worldwide.

“It just sort of breaks your heart to see a species decline so rapidly to the point of extinction,” Rumrill said. Without them, sea urchin populations have exploded, causing a troubling decline in kelp forests that provide food and shelter to many aquatic species along the West Coast.Ģ-time world champion Doyle Brunson, called the Godfather of Poker, dies at 89 The sea stars, which are among the largest in the world and can span more than 3 feet (91 centimeters), are predators to the kelp-eating sea urchin.

Steven Rumrill, shellfish program leader at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, said in his more than 40 years as a marine scientist, he hasn’t seen a widespread decline of a species on the same scale as the sunflower sea star. A petition to list the species under the federal Endangered Species Act was filed in 2021. The decline triggered the International Union for Conservation of Nature to classify the species as critically endangered in 2020. (AP) - Scientists along the West Coast are calling for action to help sunflower sea stars, among the largest sea stars in the world, recover from catastrophic population declines.Įxperts say a sea star wasting disease epidemic that began in 2013 has decimated about 95% of the population from the Aleutian Islands of Alaska to Mexico’s Baja California peninsula, The Astorian reported.

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