Saving Southern California’s Giant Sunflower Star Fish

Conservationists are working to restore the populations of a giant sea star that only lives off the West Coast of the United States.

Other types of sea stars are suffering population decline, but ecologists are especially invested in the survival of the endangered Sunflower sea star because they play an important role in keeping our coastal ecosystem in balance.

Between 2013 and 2017, an illness known as "star wasting disease" decimated their population, killing up to 99% of them in Southern California.

The Sunflower sea star

The multicolored Sunflower stars are big, fast-moving carnivores that can grow to more than 3 feet in diameter, with between 16 and 24 arms.

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The underside of sunflower sea star

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Courtesy of The Aquarium of The Pacific

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Their habitat ranges from Alaska to Baja, California.

Why they are so important

The Sunflower sea stars are natural predators of sea urchins, which feed on Southern California's kelp forests.

“[Kelp] gives us more oxygen even here on land than trees do,” said senior aquarist Jenifer Burney, who works with the Aquarium of the Pacific in leading the multi-organizational conservation effort. “So having a healthy kelp forest is going to contribute to us being able to breathe.”

Burney added that kelp provides essential habitat for other invertebrates, fish, marine mammals and birds.

“The story of the Sunflower star isn't just about the star,” she said. “It's about the entire ecosystem in which it inhabits.”

Saving the Sunflower sea stars

The international conservation effort intends to restore Sunflower star populations through a captive breeding and release program.

One step is to study the disease that’s destroying the star fish. Researchers are hoping to find the culprit and a cure.

The Aquarium of the Pacific may bring in disease ecologists to work on this in particular, according to Burney.

But the bigger goal is to restore the starfish’s numbers, and to teach others how to do it.

“If we're able to actually produce this species in a captive setting, we can share the techniques,” Burney said. “Everybody can do it, and then hopefully in the very near future, we're hoping we can actually outplant those animals to the wild and restore populations through human intervention.”