[video]
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/watch/a-...ts-to-save-the-star-fish-330000451557[/video]
Newsweek, Oct. 2, 2014: A grisly horror show is playing out along the West Coast… millions of dead and dying sea stars… victims of a swift and brutal illness… organs rupture… arms fall off. Ultimately, the sea star dissolves, as if melted by acid… This summer, the outbreak morphed into a full-scale epidemic… so bad that researchers have lost count of how many stars are lost. They estimate millions… food webs are being upended… shorelines that used to be dotted with sea stars and other species are now blanketed with barnacles growing with abandon, a sign of the loss of biodiversity on the coast… The wasting syndrome has also been reported in populations along the East Coast [see Dr. Miner's comment below].
Dr. Benjamin Miner, Western Washington University: (Q: Are Atlantic starfish affected?) Wasting syndrome… has just been along the West Coast… It’s kind of slowly progressing northward, which… certainly suggests there’s something in the water that might be spreading.
PBS (Oregon), Oct. 1, 2014: Program Coordinator Samantha Ferber… estimates that more than 90 percent of the total sea stars in the lower intertidal… succumbed to the disease… “There has never been an event this dramatic… dying rapidly… degrading before our eyes.”
Dr. Drew Harvell, Cornell University, Sept. 19, 2014: “Unprecedented… largest marine wildlife outbreak ever recorded in terms of number of species, and spread… [It] has big implications for humans… this epidemic is an emergency… If they disappear… we cannot repopulate them.”
Dr. Harvell: “It’s the largest epidemic we’ve ever seen with marine wildlife… We watched our populations go from thousands of stars to none over the space of a month.”
Bruce Menge, Oregon St. Univ.: [I can't] find even a single star. “Deep down, I worry this might be a harbinger of some impending, major problem resulting from climate change… a complete alteration of coastal ecosystems”… Wasting syndrome appeared… the same time that deep, cold water rose up and filled the area… so perhaps it is not warming waters.
MSNBC, Sept. 17, 2014: It’s the largest known epidemic in the world’s oceans – Laura James, diver: “There were a whole bunch of sea stars that washed up… more than any of us had ever seen… I’ll never forget it, it was like a war zone… bodies laying around everywhere… Up and down the west coast from Mexico all the way up to Alaska, the scale of this is beyond anything I’ve ever even imagined. We’re already seeing changes, we’re seeing a shift in our biodiversity… [The sea stars] are all gone now… It could be an indicator of a bigger problem.”
Published: October 8th, 2014 at 7:56 pm ET
By ENENews
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Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) 35th Annual Meeting — The Fukushima Legacy, Nov. 13, 2014: In the face of lack of knowledge and data from regional governments regarding potential risks of Fukushima-associated radiation in the Pacific Northwest [there's a] need to conduct lines of research and monitoring aimed to understand baseline data and bioaccumulation potential of radionuclides and radiation risks… Fukushima… emerged as a global threat for the conservation of the Pacific Ocean, human health, and marine biodiversity… Despite the looming threat of radiation [there's a] lack of radiation monitoring [in] Canada and United States. This is unfortunate, as the potential radioactive contamination of seafoods through bioaccumulation of radioisotopes in marine and coastal food webs are issues of major concern for the public health of coastal communities. Particularly vulnerable are First Nations that rely strongly on… seafoods and fish… The effects of radioactive contamination are likely to affect other top predators, including fish-eating marine mammals inhabiting offshore and coastal habitats of the region… concerns and questions remain about the long-term exposure and bioaccumulation of radioactivity in marine food webs…
SETAC — Prof. J. Alava and F.A. Gobas, Simon Fraser Univ., Nov. 13, 2014: [T]o track the long term fate and bioaccumulation of 137Cs in marine organisms… we assessed the bioaccumulation potential of 137Cs in a North West Pacific food-web… [Specifically, the] marine mammalian food web… outcomes showed that 137Cs can be expected to bioaccumulate gradually… [The] magnification factor for 137Cs [was] from 5.0 at 365 days of simulation to 30 at 10,950 days. From 1 year to 30 years of simulation, the 137Cs activities predicted in the male killer whale were 6.0 to 182 times 137Cs activities in its major prey [Chinook salmon]… This modeling work showed that in addition to the ocean dilution of 137Cs, a magnification of this radionuclide takes place in the marine food web over time.
SETAC — Dr. Erica Frank, Univ. of British Columbia, Nov. 13, 2014: [Fukushima Daiichi is causing] ongoing radioactive contamination of coastal waters, and eventually the Pacific Ocean. This has spurred worldwide concern around conservation of marine plants… animals [and] human health… [The] accident has important implications for public and environmental health policy in North America… there is the lingering question of the effects of long-term exposure, bioaccumulation of 137Cs in marine food webs, and potential health effects on human populations. Despite all of these concerns, there is currently a paucity of [gov't] monitoring…
Ali Hamade, Alaska’s Environmental Public Health Program Director (pdf), 2014:
