Four years ago the West Cost of the United States, especially in Southern California a mysterious syndrome killed millions of starfish. The 2013-2014 syndrome affected starfish from British Colombia to Mexico and cause the creatures to develop lesions and ultimately disintegrate.
Starfish are back
Thankfully, after four years since the tragedy, starfish are making a comeback on the West Coast. People have spotted them in California and everyone is happy hearing this news.
Darryl Deleske, aquarist in L.A, has explained that the starfish are coming back in big numbers and I is all good news. According to him, the situation was very bad a couple of years ago, when starfish could not be found on the entire West Coast, up to Canada.
A similar situation took place back in the 70s, 80s and 90s; however four years ago the situation was worse than ever.
Researchers have been keeping an eye on starfish
Researchers from the University of Santa Cruz have been analyzing starfish and concluded the mysterious disease arrived in Southern California around December 2013. It started with ochre stars and it continued with mottled stars, leather stars, sunflower stars, rainbow stars and six-armed stars.
Deleske described the incident and he is glad the situation has changed. He declared that four adult sea stars have been spotted at Crystal Cove State Park this month.
Kaitlin Magliano, education coordinator at Crystal Cove Conservancy, is very happy with the return of the starfish. Even so she hopes the next generation of starfish to be more resilient.
The danger still exists
Several reports suggest that the starfish are not out of danger just yet. The mysterious wasting syndrome has been reappearing in the Salish Sea region of Washington State, as noticed by the researchers from the University of Santa Cruz.