FRIDAYEXTRA !
The Daily Astorian
Friday, January 23, 2015
Weekend Edition
SEA STARS MAKE
A COMEBACK
Wasting epidemic appears to be over at Haystack Rock
By ERICK BENGEL
EO Media Group
Photo courtesy of Susan Glarum
Becca Cudmore, a Brooklyn-based science writer, who is wear-
ing a black jacket, takes notes during HRAP’s October sea star
survey. Nadine Nordquist, center, an HRAP staff interpreter, and
Alix Lee, the program’s 2014 intern, gather information to send
to the Multi-Agency Rocky Intertidal Network.
CANNON BEACH — The
worst of the sea star wasting disease
epidemic that decimated sea star
populations along the West Coast
during the past 19 months appears
to be over at Haystack Rock — at
least for now.
Most of what’s left are the juvenile
sea stars that somehow survived the
pathogenic onslaught that killed off
more than 90 percent of their fellows
during the 2014 beach season, ac-
cording to Haystack Rock Awareness
Coordinator Samantha Ferber, who
recorded the death toll at three sites.
“Now that we’re past the peak
of the disease, we’re starting to see
that, across the board, sea stars don’t
have as severe symptoms,” Ferber
said. However, this may be because
the sea stars that did show the most
severe symptoms have all died, she
noted.
A fall survey that Ferber con-
ducted with HRAP volunteers at and
around Haystack Rock found that
younger, smaller sea stars tended to
fare better than older, larger ones.
• Of nine recorded ochre sea stars
on Haystack Rock’s south wall, the
only three that showed wasting
signs had a radius (measured from
the middle of their body to the tip
of their longest limb) larger than 40
millimeters.
• Of 21 recorded ochre sea stars
on the east boulder at the Needles,
14 showed wasting signs; the three
sea stars with a radius smaller than
40 millimeters showed no signs.
(While these numbers demonstrate
that not all larger sea stars became
infected, they add evidence to the
claim that the smaller ones tended
not to become infected.)
• Of 24 recorded ochre sea stars
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that showed wasting signs were
larger than 40 millimeters.
Though Ferber and her team
looked at all of the sea star species
at Haystack Rock, they were only
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stars. Since the disease hit the rock
last spring, “We have not seen a sin-
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that used to be seen in the tide pools
during lower tides, she said.
Ferber sends the results of these
Photo courtesy of Haystack Rock Awareness Program
The white goo on the severed end of a dead sea star’s limbs told Hay-
stack Rock Awareness Program Coordinator Samantha Ferber that
the limb loss was the result of the wasting disease, not predation.
Photo courtesy of HRAP
This photo of a dying sea star, tak-
en in May at Haystack Rock, shows
the organism at roughly Stage 3 as
it disintegrates into a white mush.
By July, more than 90 percent of
the sea stars at the rock had suc-
cumbed to the wasting disease.
quarterly surveys to MARINe
(Multi-Agency Rocky Intertidal
Network), a consortium of univer-
sities and government agencies that
monitors the ecology of rocky inter-
tidal areas along the West Coast.
‘Falling apart’
Before the wasting disease ar-
rived in Cannon Beach last spring,
it had already wiped out millions of
sea stars at several sites along the
West Coast, from Alaska to South-
ern California.
Wasting events have happened
before, but “we’ve never seen the
disease arrive at the levels that
we’ve seen over the past year, year
and a half,” said Melissa Miner, a
research associate at the Universi-
ty of California, Santa Cruz, who
works with MARINe.
The disease begins as lesions on
a sea star’s body that degrade its
WLVVXHVKULYHOXSLWVUD\VDQG¿QDO
ly dissolve the invertebrate into a
pale goo. It usually kills the organ-
ism within a few days to a couple of
weeks, though some sea stars may
slough off infected rays before the
lesions reach their vital organs and
later regenerate them.
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Haystack Rock last March. By the
end of July, most of the sea stars in
the rock’s intertidal zone had died.
“Sea stars were falling apart,”
she said. “We could see that sea stars
were dying right in front of us.”
However, “that’s not happening
anymore,” she said.
Comebacks
HRAP and MARINe are focus-
ing on the number of new sea stars
in a given sea star population and
what species are thriving in the af-
termath of the wasting.
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stars have proliferated at the Nee-
dles near Haystack Rock, despite
that very few were recorded during
HRAP’s July survey.
See SEA STARS, Page 4C
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2010 pinot noir — to the Plati-
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— our 2013 pinot gris and our medal at a competition in Ore-
BY STEVEN SINKLER
For The Daily Astorian
Additionally, when all of the
judges gave the wine a plati-
num medal, the wine received
a “double platinum” award.
Likewise, a “double gold” med-
al would also be awarded if all
the judges gave a gold medal to
a wine.
As Christmas drew near,
I began to anticipate the an-
nouncement of the results. The
competition is stiff, and the
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back to me yet.
platinum medal, a gold medal or
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in the
gon, Washington, Idaho or Brit-
ish Columbia during the year.
From this initial list, the
judges then select the wines they
invite to compete. We were elat-
ed to receive an invitation.
As I packed up the wines for
the event, I put each precious
Wine
Cellar
ts
Presen
Live at the
Liberty Theater, Astoria
Tickets $15 - $20 - $25 at the Liberty Box office & www.TicketsWest.com/
March 6 7:30 pm
His only Oregon
performance!