Vancouver Aquarium 'alarmed' at mass die-off of starfish on B.C. ocean floor

It has begun

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.

"They're gone. It's amazing," said Donna Gibbs, a research diver and taxonomist on the aquarium's Howe Sound Research and Conservation group.

"Whatever hit them, it was like wildfire and just wiped them out."

[link to www.vancouversun.com]


really just