Mysterious disease turning starfish to 'slime' on U.S. West Coast

By Laila Kearney SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Scientists are struggling to find the trigger for a disease that appears to be ravaging starfish in record numbers along the U.S. West Coast, causing the sea creatures to lose their limbs and turn to slime in a matter of days. Marine biologists and ecologists will launch an extensive survey this week along the coasts of California, Washington state and Oregon to determine the reach and source of the deadly syndrome, known as "star wasting disease." "It's pretty spooky because we don't have any obvious culprit for the root cause even though we know it's likely caused by a pathogen," said Pete Raimondi, chair of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California at Santa Cruz's Long Marine Lab. Starfish have suffered from the syndrome on and off for decades but have usually been reported in small numbers, isolated to Southern California and linked to a rise in seawater temperatures, which is not the case this time, Raimondi said.



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