August 13, 2025 • 8 mins
How 5 billion sea stars died is a story that shook marine ecosystems along North America’s Pacific coast. This episode dives into the groundbreaking discovery of the bacterium Vibrio pectenicida, the pathogen responsible for sea star wasting disease, which decimated up to 90% of sunflower sea stars. We explore how the loss of these predators caused sea urchin populations to explode, leading to widespread kelp forest destruction, and what new recovery strategies—such as captive breeding, probiotics, and climate monitoring—could mean for the species and the habitats they support. By understanding the science and the solutions, we can help restore balance to one of the ocean’s most important coastal ecosystems.
Link to article: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/science/sea-stars-disease-vibrio-pectenicida.html
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Since 2013, researchers havenoticed a drastic decline up to 90%
decline in sea stars starfish alongthe west coast of North America.
Nobody really knew what was going on.
There was this idea of a sea starwasting disease where they would
just waste away and just like,kind of like tear apart underwater.
And the ramifications were drastic.
(00:20):
We saw an increase in sea urchinpopulations because of a decrease in
the sea stars, as well as a decreasein kelp because urchins eat kelp.
There are huge ramifications infinding out what has caused the
decline of the sea stars and whatwe need to do to bring them back.
Luckily, researchers have figured out whatthe actual cause of the sea star wasting
(00:41):
disease and now we're hoping to be able tofix it and get that ecosystem back intact.
We're gonna talk about it alltoday on this episode of the How
to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
Let's start the show.
Hey everybody.
Welcome back to another exciting episodeof the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, andthis is the podcast where you find
out what's happening with the ocean,how you can speak up for the ocean,
and what you can do to live fora better ocean by taking action.
(01:04):
On today's episode, we're gonna betalking about sea stars, including the
drastic 90% decline in sea stars since2013 because of sea star wasting disease.
It's a disease that basically broke downsea stars across the west coast of North
America, and it caused a lot of panic.
There was people running what's going on.
During that time, we saw El Ninoand the blob, which was, you know,
(01:27):
El Nino caused a lot more seasurface temperature increased.
There was the blob, which waslike a blob of water that was just
heating up from the North Pacific.
And it was coming down towards the midPacific, I guess mid Eastern Pacific.
And people said, well,maybe it's because of that.
Maybe there's something in the waterthat's increasing because of this
increase in temperature and it'scausing like a lot of the parts of the
(01:50):
ecosystem to kind of go out of whack.
So it's not surprising that sea starswould actually have a problem and
maybe they're just melting away.
We didn't really know.
Scientists were tryingto figure out for years.
And it has come to myattention that they've actually
figured out what's happened.
They've identified a bacterium, andI'm gonna try and pronounce this
bacterium, but we'll see what happens.
Vibrio pectenicida strain, FHCF-3 as thecause of the sea star wasting disease.
(02:14):
SSWD that has been devastatingsea star populations along North
America's west coast since 2013.
So like I said before, the diseaseled to the loss of up to 90% of the
Sunflower Sea Stars population equatingto over 5 billion individuals leaving
the species critically endangered.
This is the thing, what happens when youhave climate change, when you have other
(02:35):
factors that are cumulative that canbe very hospitable to other organisms.
This bacteria potentially has been doingreally well in higher temperatures.
It's been proliferating and it'sbeen going all over the West coast
of North America, and affectingthe Sunflower Sea Star population,
making them critically endangered.
Like, think about taking 5 billionindividuals out of a population.
(02:58):
It's critically endangered.
We're lucky that it hadsuch a high population.
It didn't go extinct.
So researchers confirmed the causation byisolating the bacterium from their fluid.
So it's almost like their bloodfluid, their sea star blood,
essentially what we call it.
And fulfilling Koch's Postulatesvia controlled infection study.
So this is just the method that they used.
And the consequences have includeda dramatic surge in sea urchin
(03:19):
populations, which has in turn led tothe destruction of kelp forests, a key
marine habitat for, you know, supportingbiodiversity, coastal protection, carbon
sequestration, and local communities.
Now, just to kind of take itout a little bit and, look at
an overview of a kelp forest.
Kelp forest are aquatic plants that growunderneath the surface of the ocean.
(03:39):
And they stem, like allthe way from the bottom.
It could be like ahundred meters, 200 meter.
I don't know even knowif it goes that far.
But it goes pretty far up.
It's secured at the bottom ofthe ocean, and then it goes
all the way up to the top.
And you know the forests are dense forestswhere you have a lot of cover for animals.
And if you go to any aquarium, MontereyBay Aquarium, you can go to the Toronto
Aquarium here locally here in Toronto, andyou can see these kelp forests and what it
(04:01):
creates, the environment that it creates,all these fish and invertebrates are
almost like made to be hiddenwithin this kelp forest.
And it's something that isextremely important to a lot of
fisheries along the West coast.
you know, just sustainable populationsand making ecosystems, structure
and security along that coastline.
There's a lot of stuff that's benefitto that and I remember in university.
(04:24):
I'm going back to my universitydays 'cause my daughter's going to
the same university this year thatI went to, my wife went to, and I'm
going back to my university daysand I'm remembering population of
Ecology and learning about food websystems and how when you take out a
important animal within a species, withina food web, that it affects the rest
of the food web and it can affect thedynamic and the balance of that ecosystem.
(04:46):
And what I learned was, you know, urchin,sea otter and kelp forest relationship.
And so when the sea Otter populationdwindled, and it went to critically
endangered back in the 1800sand 1900s and there weren't
any protections for sea otters.
The kelp forest declined becausethe sea urchin population increased.
Well, now we've had some success inseeing the sea otter population increase.
(05:09):
And over time we've seen the seaurchin population decrease a little
bit, but unfortunately, what wedidn't really know is the amount of
effect of sea stars on sea urchins.
They also eat sea urchins, and thedisappearance of these sea stars have
shown that there's still an increase,even though the sea Otter population
is doing fairly well or doing better.
Maybe not at what it oncewas, but doing better.
(05:31):
Even with the sea otter populationthere, they're not eating enough sea
urchins to control the level predationof sea urchins on kelp forests.
So I hope this is not too confusing'cause I'm using a lot of things here.
I should probably have a diagram maybewhen I get paid to do these types of
videos, we can put a diagram together.
but essentially what happens is eventhough you have sea otter population
doing better than what it was.
(05:51):
You don't have that sea star population,and they both predate on sea urchins.
Now the sea urchin population isincreasing a little bit and affecting
the kelp forest population, which affectsso many other species within the west
coast of North America that it becomes anegative effect on the entire west coast
and affects, you know, coastline security.
It affects biodiversity, it affectsfisheries, affects a lot of things.
(06:12):
and having, you know, cumulativeeffects like climate change and maybe
bad management of fisheries in certainsituations and other things, and just
coastal development and so forth.
You have problems.
So the fact that we have diagnosedthe problem that's happening with the
Sunflower Sea stars and other sea starpopulations, we can do better now.
So with the pathogen now identified.
(06:33):
Efforts can shift towards a targetedrecovery such as captive breeding,
probiotic treatments, and monitoringenvironmental drivers like warming
waters that influence disease outbreaks.
So now we know when the water's warm,we can actually detect how badly this
bacterium will do, and we can startlooking at experiments like that.
So graduate students, if you'relooking for a project, this would
(06:56):
be amazing to do because you're onthe forefront, on the cutting edge
of looking at how to manage this bacteriumand how to manage a critically endangered
population and try and bring it back,which seems to perforate quite a bit
if it's healthy because there was 5billion individuals that were killed
and it's still critically endangered.
So there's a big upside inbringing these species back if
(07:16):
we can control this bacterium.
So that's the episode.
I'd love to hear what you think aboutthis is the fact that it took us so long.
Why did it take us so long?
I'd love to hear yourquestions or comments.
Let me know in the comments below,if you're watching this on YouTube.
If you're listening to this onthe audio version, you can get
in touch with me with two ways.
You can go to speak up forblue.com/contact and you can email me.
(07:37):
Just fill out the contact page or if youwant to connect with me over Instagram,
just DM me at how to protect the ocean.
I would love to hear from you and ifyou want to learn more about how you can
better protect the ocean, don't forget.
You can join the undertow at any time.
We're coming up with this app.
It's an online digital app toessentially bring together people
who want to do better for the ocean.
(07:58):
So not only do we have this communityhere, but it's also we have this community
on this app that you can learn how andbe guided to connecting to the ocean.
Be with a community that wantsto do better for the ocean.
And essentially take part inconservation projects or learn how to
fund conservation projects, identifyby, you know, through vetted processes
of what products to use and so forth.
(08:19):
There's a lot of upsides, so go tospeak up for blue.com/join the undertow.
I wanna thank you again for joiningme on today's episode of the How
to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
I'm your host, Andrew Lewin fromthe True Nord Strong and free.
Have a great day.
We'll talk to you next timeand happy conservation.
Since 2013, researchers havenoticed a drastic decline up to 90%
decline in sea stars starfish alongthe west coast of North America.
Nobody really knew what was going on.
There was this idea of a sea starwasting disease where they would
just waste away and just like,kind of like tear apart underwater.
And the ramifications were drastic.
(00:20):
We saw an increase in sea urchinpopulations because of a decrease in
the sea stars, as well as a decreasein kelp because urchins eat kelp.
There are huge ramifications infinding out what has caused the
decline of the sea stars and whatwe need to do to bring them back.
Luckily, researchers have figured out whatthe actual cause of the sea star wasting
(00:41):
disease and now we're hoping to be able tofix it and get that ecosystem back intact.
We're gonna talk about it alltoday on this episode of the How
to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
Let's start the show.
Hey everybody.
Welcome back to another exciting episodeof the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, andthis is the podcast where you find
out what's happening with the ocean,how you can speak up for the ocean,
and what you can do to live fora better ocean by taking action.
(01:04):
On today's episode, we're gonna betalking about sea stars, including the
drastic 90% decline in sea stars since2013 because of sea star wasting disease.
It's a disease that basically broke downsea stars across the west coast of North
America, and it caused a lot of panic.
There was people running what's going on.
During that time, we saw El Ninoand the blob, which was, you know,
(01:27):
El Nino caused a lot more seasurface temperature increased.
There was the blob, which waslike a blob of water that was just
heating up from the North Pacific.
And it was coming down towards the midPacific, I guess mid Eastern Pacific.
And people said, well,maybe it's because of that.
Maybe there's something in the waterthat's increasing because of this
increase in temperature and it'scausing like a lot of the parts of the
(01:50):
ecosystem to kind of go out of whack.
So it's not surprising that sea starswould actually have a problem and
maybe they're just melting away.
We didn't really know.
Scientists were tryingto figure out for years.
And it has come to myattention that they've actually
figured out what's happened.
They've identified a bacterium, andI'm gonna try and pronounce this
bacterium, but we'll see what happens.
Vibrio pectenicida strain, FHCF-3 as thecause of the sea star wasting disease.
(02:14):
SSWD that has been devastatingsea star populations along North
America's west coast since 2013.
So like I said before, the diseaseled to the loss of up to 90% of the
Sunflower Sea Stars population equatingto over 5 billion individuals leaving
the species critically endangered.
This is the thing, what happens when youhave climate change, when you have other
(02:35):
factors that are cumulative that canbe very hospitable to other organisms.
This bacteria potentially has been doingreally well in higher temperatures.
It's been proliferating and it'sbeen going all over the West coast
of North America, and affectingthe Sunflower Sea Star population,
making them critically endangered.
Like, think about taking 5 billionindividuals out of a population.
(02:58):
It's critically endangered.
We're lucky that it hadsuch a high population.
It didn't go extinct.
So researchers confirmed the causation byisolating the bacterium from their fluid.
So it's almost like their bloodfluid, their sea star blood,
essentially what we call it.
And fulfilling Koch's Postulatesvia controlled infection study.
So this is just the method that they used.
And the consequences have includeda dramatic surge in sea urchin
(03:19):
populations, which has in turn led tothe destruction of kelp forests, a key
marine habitat for, you know, supportingbiodiversity, coastal protection, carbon
sequestration, and local communities.
Now, just to kind of take itout a little bit and, look at
an overview of a kelp forest.
Kelp forest are aquatic plants that growunderneath the surface of the ocean.
(03:39):
And they stem, like allthe way from the bottom.
It could be like ahundred meters, 200 meter.
I don't know even knowif it goes that far.
But it goes pretty far up.
It's secured at the bottom ofthe ocean, and then it goes
all the way up to the top.
And you know the forests are dense forestswhere you have a lot of cover for animals.
And if you go to any aquarium, MontereyBay Aquarium, you can go to the Toronto
Aquarium here locally here in Toronto, andyou can see these kelp forests and what it
(04:01):
creates, the environment that it creates,all these fish and invertebrates are
almost like made to be hiddenwithin this kelp forest.
And it's something that isextremely important to a lot of
fisheries along the West coast.
you know, just sustainable populationsand making ecosystems, structure
and security along that coastline.
There's a lot of stuff that's benefitto that and I remember in university.
(04:24):
I'm going back to my universitydays 'cause my daughter's going to
the same university this year thatI went to, my wife went to, and I'm
going back to my university daysand I'm remembering population of
Ecology and learning about food websystems and how when you take out a
important animal within a species, withina food web, that it affects the rest
of the food web and it can affect thedynamic and the balance of that ecosystem.
(04:46):
And what I learned was, you know, urchin,sea otter and kelp forest relationship.
And so when the sea Otter populationdwindled, and it went to critically
endangered back in the 1800sand 1900s and there weren't
any protections for sea otters.
The kelp forest declined becausethe sea urchin population increased.
Well, now we've had some success inseeing the sea otter population increase.
(05:09):
And over time we've seen the seaurchin population decrease a little
bit, but unfortunately, what wedidn't really know is the amount of
effect of sea stars on sea urchins.
They also eat sea urchins, and thedisappearance of these sea stars have
shown that there's still an increase,even though the sea Otter population
is doing fairly well or doing better.
Maybe not at what it oncewas, but doing better.
(05:31):
Even with the sea otter populationthere, they're not eating enough sea
urchins to control the level predationof sea urchins on kelp forests.
So I hope this is not too confusing'cause I'm using a lot of things here.
I should probably have a diagram maybewhen I get paid to do these types of
videos, we can put a diagram together.
but essentially what happens is eventhough you have sea otter population
doing better than what it was.
(05:51):
You don't have that sea star population,and they both predate on sea urchins.
Now the sea urchin population isincreasing a little bit and affecting
the kelp forest population, which affectsso many other species within the west
coast of North America that it becomes anegative effect on the entire west coast
and affects, you know, coastline security.
It affects biodiversity, it affectsfisheries, affects a lot of things.
(06:12):
and having, you know, cumulativeeffects like climate change and maybe
bad management of fisheries in certainsituations and other things, and just
coastal development and so forth.
You have problems.
So the fact that we have diagnosedthe problem that's happening with the
Sunflower Sea stars and other sea starpopulations, we can do better now.
So with the pathogen now identified.
(06:33):
Efforts can shift towards a targetedrecovery such as captive breeding,
probiotic treatments, and monitoringenvironmental drivers like warming
waters that influence disease outbreaks.
So now we know when the water's warm,we can actually detect how badly this
bacterium will do, and we can startlooking at experiments like that.
So graduate students, if you'relooking for a project, this would
(06:56):
be amazing to do because you're onthe forefront, on the cutting edge
of looking at how to manage this bacteriumand how to manage a critically endangered
population and try and bring it back,which seems to perforate quite a bit
if it's healthy because there was 5billion individuals that were killed
and it's still critically endangered.
So there's a big upside inbringing these species back if
(07:16):
we can control this bacterium.
So that's the episode.
I'd love to hear what you think aboutthis is the fact that it took us so long.
Why did it take us so long?
I'd love to hear yourquestions or comments.
Let me know in the comments below,if you're watching this on YouTube.
If you're listening to this onthe audio version, you can get
in touch with me with two ways.
You can go to speak up forblue.com/contact and you can email me.
(07:37):
Just fill out the contact page or if youwant to connect with me over Instagram,
just DM me at how to protect the ocean.
I would love to hear from you and ifyou want to learn more about how you can
better protect the ocean, don't forget.
You can join the undertow at any time.
We're coming up with this app.
It's an online digital app toessentially bring together people
who want to do better for the ocean.
(07:58):
So not only do we have this communityhere, but it's also we have this community
on this app that you can learn how andbe guided to connecting to the ocean.
Be with a community that wantsto do better for the ocean.
And essentially take part inconservation projects or learn how to
fund conservation projects, identifyby, you know, through vetted processes
of what products to use and so forth.
(08:19):
There's a lot of upsides, so go tospeak up for blue.com/join the undertow.
I wanna thank you again for joiningme on today's episode of the How
to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
I'm your host, Andrew Lewin fromthe True Nord Strong and free.
Have a great day.
We'll talk to you next timeand happy conservation.
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