Posted on 11/10/2013 12:28:51 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Mysterious disease turning starfish to 'slime' on U.S. West Coast
Mon, Nov 4 2013
By Laila Kearney
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Scientists are struggling to find the trigger for a disease that appears to be ravaging starfish in record numbers along the U.S. West Coast, causing the sea creatures to lose their limbs and turn to slime in a matter of days.
Marine biologists and ecologists will launch an extensive survey this week along the coasts of California, Washington state and Oregon to determine the reach and source of the deadly syndrome, known as "star wasting disease."
"It's pretty spooky because we don't have any obvious culprit for the root cause even though we know it's likely caused by a pathogen," said Pete Raimondi, chair of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California at Santa Cruz's Long Marine Lab.
Signs of sea star wasting syndrome typically begin with white lesions on the arms of the starfish that spread inward, causing the entire animal to disintegrate in less than a week, according to a report by the Pacific Rocky Intertidal Monitoring Program at the University of California at Santa Cruz.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
P!
Not a real problem. They eat everything on the floor.
Kewel.
Maybe they’ll stop those howling noises at night.
It’s not a disease. Think of a major disaster on the coast of Japan...
Read post #1 by “Alpha1.”
Japan tsunami water?
Good news for the oystermen.
“Signs of sea star wasting syndrome typically begin with white lesions on the arms of the starfish that spread inward, causing the entire animal to disintegrate in less than a week”
I could be wrong, but this is just a symptom of a much larger issue emanating from the far east, slowly but steadily making it’s way to North America
REALLY.... this is some new bizarre disease caused by some
radioactive material from Japan magically concentrating on the west coast when the quintillions of bequerels of radiation the US and others pumped into the Pacific over the course of 20 years of testing DID NOTHING?
BULLSHIITE. Idiots and luddites abound and every last one
of them are convinced THEY are effing experts on radioactivity when none of them could chart the decay
chain of a single isotope if their bleeping life depended on it.
The starfish might be subject to a lot of pollutants and industrial byproducts from manufacturing and agriculture along the west coast that might be the cause but I absoleffinglutely guarantee you it AIN’T NO FRIGGIN RADIATION FROM JAPAN.
I think you are......This is nature's way of population control.
The same phenomenon is occuring on the east coast which just so happened to experience an explosion in the starfish population 3 years ago.
Mammals such rabbits and coons go thru population cycles. It's especially noticeable in coons in areas of high human population and semi-rural habitat. They contract a highly contagious disease similar to canine distemper and you'll see them wandering aimlessly in the daytime.
Back in the mid 90's I witnessed such an outbreak at a local metro-park while golfing. I must have seen 5 coons on the course that day just staggering around.
I’m wondering what’s going to happen to the fish who eat those dying starfish, and the fish who eat them, all the way up the food chain. Will they be infected, too?
Excellent post. I never looked at it that way. In fact, I had bought into the “radiation from Japan” theory. But yours is more plausible.
That was just Obama’s golfing partners.
I think you’re right. That was my first thought also.
Ooooooohhh. One of the best taglines I've ever seen. Nice.
Fukishima?
The ‘Rats turned into slime a LOOOOONG time ago.
What do starfish eat ? Bivalves.
What do bivalves eat ? They filter water of particles and tiny organisms.
The exact items where radioactive particles from Fukushima would be located.
In other words, the food source for starfish are bioaccumulators for whatever occurs in the sea. The Pacifc Ocean is dieing and the cronies responsible are gonna be held accountable. All of them.
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