FORT BRAGG, CA, 4/5/23 — Fort Bragg professional urchin diver Grant Downie spotted another sunflower sea star off the Mendocino coast last week, following his December sighting of one of the now-rare star species. Downie’s video of this spring sighting amassed dozens of comments as people rejoiced to see the star, which has seen population declines of between 80 and 100% across its West Coast range after an outbreak of Sea Star Wasting Syndrome a decade ago.
Sunflower sea stars (Pycnopodia helianthoides) are a critical part of our underwater ecosystem; their decline, which scientists attribute in part to rapidly warming waters and pollution, led to a population boom in purple urchin, for which sunflower stars are a natural predator. Purple urchin eat bull kelp and have no other predator — not even fisheries, as there is no commercial market for them — meaning that this ecosystem out of whack has led to extreme bull kelp decline off Mendocino County shores.
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