In June 2013, Steven Fradkin stumbled upon a grisly scene at Starfish Point in Washington, northwest of Seattle. About one in four of the park’s namesake animals were contorted and covered in white lesions. The seriously sick starfish were crumpled and sagging, their internal organs beginning to rupture through their skin. But that wasn’t what really stuck with Fradkin, when I spoke to him a year later. What really affected him were the arms that had ripped loose from the animals’ bodies. “There were individual arms just roaming around in a Walking Dead kind of way,” he says.
Interview
Comments
Thanks for this article! This was a great read, and makes me sad for these beautiful creatures. I hope you will provide updates for this. Also, that last photo is just beautiful.
By Ishmayl on 11.18.14 11:07am
"I TOTALLY THINK CLIMATE CHANGE IS INVOLVED. I JUST DON’T HAVE EVIDENCE YET."
yesh, realsh schienshe.
By lassikin on 11.18.14 11:08pm
Yes, it’s called an hypothesis. Look it up.
By Cerasus on 11.19.14 4:27am
In case you haven’t taken high school science class, here’s a brief run down of the scientific method:
You make observations (You see starfishes dying in such and such areas, they spread to such and such areas, under certain conditions)
You make a hypothesis (Why do you think the starfishes are dying? If you think it’s climate change, is there anything to suggest this? Has climate change cause other species to drop off in population?)
You make a prediction (If the hypothesis is true, then what will happen to the starfish population in the future given such and such conditions?)
Then you test your hypothesis/prediction, and formulate a new hypothesis if necessary.
Scientists are allowed to have opinions and form hypothesis. They just have to go and test them after, and if experiments show that they’re wrong, they refine/change their hypothesis.
By DavidPJTopolsky on 11.19.14 3:22pm
This was cool, thanks.
By afaintglow on 11.18.14 12:47pm
This article lightly touched on it, but there’s been a massive boom leading to an overpopulation of sea stars. You can see it clearly in the bar chart. Near Grays Harbor (WA) there was a lot of concern that they were taking over and wiping out other species, mainly shellfish.
This probably won’t be a popular statement, but disease is one of nature’s ways of dealing with overpopulation.
By Actionable_Mango on 11.18.14 1:55pm
I kind of started reaching the same conclusion when they discussed how there could be a massive baby boom and that portions of them could contract the disease from leftover prey.
By liberal_elite on 11.18.14 2:05pm
Hi! That is certainly true. This die-off is larger than others that have been seen, though, so researchers were very leery of treating it as "normal" — in part because we don’t know what normal is.
By Elizabeth Lopatto on 11.18.14 3:51pm
This was truly an awesome article. Didn’t realize how fascinating sea stars are.
By terps49 on 11.18.14 4:25pm
Loved the article…. depressing to hear what is happening to ocean stars but there is hope.
By Darkzone on 11.18.14 5:51pm
I live in Vancouver, and I’m glad to see this story out. Not many know about it, even here.
By DefectX11 on 11.18.14 6:24pm
Great piece. Appreciate it.
By resource on 11.18.14 6:27pm
Life… finds a way.
By ahitchen on 11.18.14 8:41pm
Tell that to the passenger pigeon, dodo, both subspecies of Japanese wolf and etc.
By DavidPJTopolsky on 11.19.14 3:24pm
Great piece, had no idea that this was occurring and now I feel pretty well informed. Also, it’s sad there aren’t that many comments on this piece yet. As a community we can’t keep criticising The Verge for putting up articles that we think might be looking for clicks and controversy, and then not actually pay attention when something as well-researched and informative as this is written.
By Monopoly on 11.19.14 8:30am
Hey, thank you!
By Elizabeth Lopatto on 11.19.14 2:55pm
Thank you for this! I thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward to updates in the future!
This made me smile. Nature is amazing.
By Rodo on 11.19.14 10:40am
STARFISH LOVES YOU
By steinah on 11.19.14 1:38pm
Excellent piece. Watching the massing dye off first hand is sad here in Seattle. Last summer I took my young nephew to the tidepools to check out the purple sea stars. Unfortunately I was too late, in a matter of months the entire population was decimated. Where there were previously massive clumps of stars under every rock were now empty.
Hopefully a rebound is in sight, some studies show die offs are periodic and cyclic in nature.
By rikudo on 11.19.14 2:55pm
Great article, I just saw a similar one on Ars Technica that placed more weight on the virus as primary cause of death so it will be interesting to see what they wind up confirming as the cause of death.
By impendingdoom on 11.19.14 3:51pm
One of the few articles worth reading here. Thanks!
I think I’m going to stick with "starfish". Sorry.
By nawksnai on 11.19.14 6:40pm
Thank you for the great piece and for investigating this issue.
By pumpkinsoftruth on 11.20.14 9:07am
Starfish are weird critters. They are echinoderms, with fivefold symmetry. Not only that, but each of the five arms has its own brain. That’s how it can work when the report mentions that the arms break off and go their separate ways. I think each single arm is capable of regrowing a whole individual.
The downside is, it’s not so easy to coordinate decisions among five separate brains. So they’re not exactly nimble creatures…
By ldo on 11.20.14 5:23pm
Im glad starfish dont insert their stomach into human hands when we pick them up. I used to love catching starfish out on the east coast.
By Xaxxus on 11.21.14 8:38am
Fascinating article. Thank you.
By theblankat on 11.22.14 7:51am