Last month, a diver alerted Vancouver Aquarium staff that he had found a number of dead and decaying sunflower sea stars in the cold Pacific waters of a popular dive spot just off the shore of West Vancouver.
Within weeks, the tentacled orange sea stars had all but disappeared in Howe Sound and Vancouver Harbour, disintegrating where they sat on the ocean floor.
And aquarium staff don't know just how far-reaching the "alarming" epidemic has been, and whether this and other sea star species will recover.
The sunflower sea star population had inexplicably exploded in recent years. In some areas they were stacked several stars deep, and those conditions may have been ripe for disease.
Other species of sea star — commonly called starfish — are also affected.
The aquarium has dubbed the epidemic Sea Star Wasting Syndrome.
Aquarium staff don't know the cause because they have had trouble gathering specimens for testing, as starfish that looked healthy in the ocean turned up as goo at the lab.
The epidemic has killed thousands of the marine invertebrates, which can weigh up to five kilograms and live from three to five years.
The Howe Sound research team has heard from veterinarians and other marine experts that similar die-offs have taken place in Florida and California.
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