Sea Star Wasting Disease Cracked

Over the past eight years I've posted regular reports on the welfare of local starfish as they endured (and some populations became extinct due to) a mysterious contagion that makes them rot alive. Now American television network CBS has announced that the cause of Sea Star Wasting Disease has been firmly established, and it's not a virus as suspected, but a bacteria.

As noted before, several species have developed a measure of immunity to this pathogen since it first appeared in 2013, but a few have been wiped out, at least in shallower, warmer water. One of my favourites, the sunflower star (Pynopodia helianthoides), once omnipresent on the North Coast, is now basically exterminated; according to the article, less than 10% of the original count still exist, all in cold, deep water. But efforts to breed them in captivity have been successful, so there's hope they might be reintroduced to their old habitat one day.

A little Googling verified that another old friend, the giant pink Pacific starfish (Pisaster brevispinus) also lives on in colder water.

As suspected, the underlying cause of this pandemic is climate disruption, which has allowed the bacteria to flow north along the eastern Pacific Coast, to warming waters where sea stars have no defence against it.

But we've got an important scientific advance in the identification of the pathogen. Together with significant rebounding on my local beaches and location of surviving populations of much-mourned MIAs, I'm taking delivery.


(Photo of pre-plague tidepool crammed with young Pycnopodia courtesy of the US National Park Service and Wikimedia.com)

WW: Deer through the back window

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WW: At it again

(The beavers. Like all rodents, apparently created for the express purpose of sowing chaos.)

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WW: Great blue heron

(Ardea herodias. Standing about two feet tall here.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

WW: Ochre star

(Pisaster ochraceus.)

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WW: Winter waterdog

(Taricha granulosa. One of the many good things in life.)

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WW: Invasive snail

(Cornu aspersum, the brown garden snail. Originally imported to the North Coast from Europe to be eaten as escargot; now it's eating us.)

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WW: Pacific sideband snail

(Monadenia fidelis.)

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Hermits and Hotdogs

In the fifty-odd years I've worked with pets and farm animals, I've learned that anxious and abused ones often fear men – but women, not so much.

Some of this gender-specific apprehension may be down to the fact that we're bigger, louder, and maybe don't smell as nice. But a lot of men also appear to believe the world is an action movie, of which they're the beefcake.

They hurt everything that doesn't meet their approval, usually while shouting. And those guys create dread and disconsolation in many creatures.

Catch enough of that, and any sentient being learns mistrust.

You can accomplish a great deal with their victims by just sitting nearby, not reaching out, speaking quietly or not at all. It takes steady patience, but often eventually works. Perhaps the target simply concludes, based on available data, that we're not really "men". (Or maybe that we're just not failed men, which would be accurate. Brothers barging around hotdogging for the camera snatch the lion's share of attention, which is why we non-gnawers of scenery tend to fade into it.)

I was put in mind of this recently during a night sit in the back yard. First, a coyote stepped into view 30 feet away. He seemed unconcerned, not just with the intense human habitation all around him, but even the intense human right in front of him. I hissed, and he ducked away.

Then not one, but two squirrels almost climbed into my lap, in the course of whatever before-bed routines they were pursuing.

As a Zenner who sits outdoors whenever possible – it's a form in my hermit practice – I've had countless similar experiences with wildlife. I've also used this technique intentionally, with lost or traumatised cats and dogs; nervous horses; and at least one refractory laughing dove.

The grace of these encounters never ceases to thrill. For a brief instant I'm freakin' St. Francis.

Very brief, to be sure. But a flash of kensho all the same.

And a reminder that true warriors are silent and watchful.


(Photo of a true warrior courtesy of Wikipedian Petr Novák and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Mummified crab

This hand-sized specimen of Puget Sound kelp crab (Pugettia producta) quite startled me on the high tide line, far from its habitat on the low tidelands, till I noticed that it was completely dead and dry. Probably thrown up there by the waves, then dried by the sun in this lifelike posture.

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WW: Hummingbird in hand

(Photo courtesy of my friend Laura, who rescued this guy from a cat. Prevailing theory is he's a juvenile black chin [Archilochus alexandri].)

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WW: View out the front door

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WW: Bullfrog

(Rana [Lithobates] catesbeiana. Invasive and destructive here on the North Coast, but extremely common.)

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WW: Dunn's salamander

(Plethodon dunni; a melanistic specimen, lacking the wide, yellow-green back stripe and mottling typical of the breed. Another lungless North Coast salamander with no aquatic stage. Instead it lays its eggs under rotten wood, and they hatch into tiny, fully terrestrial young identical to the adults.)

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Hermit Habit

The wildlife of the North Pacific rainforest is famously reserved; where the East has its flashy cardinals, red efts, and indigo buntings, our own rubber boas, rough-skinned newts, and varied thrushes are modestly beautiful. The odd Steller's jay or goldfinch may be a pleasant change of pace, but we're satisfied to return to the brown and russet uniform of our understated nation when they've passed.

While sitting my 100 Days on the Mountain, I sometimes daydreamed about founding a North Coast-native order of forest monks. And should that fancy ever gel, we will sit in the forest of my forebears, wearing the habit of our Douglas squirrel hosts: a hooded robe of honest Cascade umber, over an ochre jersey.



(Text edited from the notes for my book, 100 Days on the Mountain. Photo of Tamiasciurus douglasii courtesy of Ivie Metzen, the US National Park Service, and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Tundra swans

(Cygnus columbianus.)

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WW: Migrating swans

(Trumpeters [Cygnus buccinator]. Brief stopover over two foggy days. Watching this large flock of very big birds light on this small lake in successive wings was a memorable experience.)

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Starfish Report 2023

Healthy adult P. ochreceus.

I conducted my informal annual survey of a local beach a few weeks ago and found the wasting-syndrome situation holding, relative to past years. The species recorded in the past are present in similar number, with a possible bump in the number of Pisaster ochraceus, the purple starfish. In that case I noted a heartening continued presence of adults with no noticeable infection or mutilation, supported by what I believe is a modest rise in the number of youngsters.

As this iconic North Coast star all but vanished at the height of the pandemic, I was touched to note this.

White E. troschelii.

With any good luck, this old friend is back to stay.

Evasterias troschelii, the mottled star, held the lead as the largest population on the tidelands since reclaiming first place from Dermasterias a few years back, though they still run small compared to pre-SSWS norms. Together with what may be signs of plague in two of the largest specimens, this may be a bit of a blue note. (See photographs; one individual appears unusually white about the disc, and a ray of another seems whiter and weaker than normal where it's been thrown over a cobble. Compare with the photos on this page. Again, I'm relying solely on 60 years of familiarity with the starfish of my homeland; this wasn't a scientific survey, and I may have misread the cues.)

So Evasterias may still be dying

Possible infected ray.

before it reaches full size. If so, the breeding population is keeping apace, so there are grounds to hope for an evolved solution.

For the rest, leather stars (Dermasterias imbricata) seem about as present as before, and sadly, Pycnopodia helianthoides, the sunflower star, and Pisaster brevispinus, the giant pink star, just as extinct. I wasn't able to observe the blood stars (Henricia leviuscula), which barely reach the intertidal zone, because the tide was a few feet higher than those I've caught in the past.

Final analysis: though the beach apparently still isn't clean, all in all, an encouraging show by the new normal.

Adolescent P. ochreceus.

WW: Sea anemone eating a crab

(The anenome [suspect Urticina columbiana] is about the size of a teacup; the crab is Hemigrapsus oregonensis, the green shore crab.

Beach crabs are seldom swallowed by anemones; on the contrary, when below the waterline, these crabs often rest in the middle of an open anemone's tentacles for long periods. I suspect this bravado is down to the fact that they're hard as porcelain and quite intractable when challenged, which is why they have very few predators. So I have no idea what the story is here. This one was still perfectly healthy despite being half-gobbed, yet not trying in the least to escape. Perhaps he burrowed into the cnidarian deliberately, though to what end I've no better idea.)

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WW: Morse code radio

(My thirty-year-old OHR high-frequency CW [Morse code] transceiver, set up at the home of friends. My friends are biologists, and their fossil-sorting table was convenient on several levels.)

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