A quiet yet powerful rescue mission is underway in the cold waters off the Pacific coast.
The nonprofit Sunflower Star Laboratory is leading the charge to revive the critically endangered sunflower sea star — a predator essential to the survival of underwater kelp forests.
The mission? To travel to an aquarium in Alaska and inject the facility's sunflower sea stars with a hormone to induce spawning. The team of researchers planned to return to the Monterey Bay area with some frozen male sperm, along with 10 live adult starfish and larvae.
However, they were excited to discover that some of the starfish began the spawning process three days before their group was set to arrive. "We can hit the ground running," Ashley Kidd, conservation project manager at the Sunflower Star Laboratory, told the Los Angeles Times.
Sunflower sea stars once thrived along the Pacific Coast between Baja California and Alaska. Then, in 2013, a mysterious disease killed an estimated 5.75 billion of them, approximately 94% of the global population. A marine heatwave weakened the species, allowing infections to spread more quickly and resulting in deadlier consequences.
Sea stars eat sea urchins and ward them off with chemical cues, keeping them in check. But with their predator gone, nothing was left to stop purple sea urchins from devouring vital kelp forests, as they can consume as much as 30 feet per month in herds. This ecological imbalance revealed just how fragile our ecosystems truly are.
It wasn't until the sunflower sea stars had nearly vanished — and kelp forests began to collapse — that scientists realized how crucial they were, prompting a multi-institutional effort to bring them back.
Restoring healthy kelp forests has wide-reaching benefits. They provide shelter and food for marine life, including sea lions, sea otters, seals, and fish, while absorbing substantial amounts of carbon dioxide from the water. They also support fisheries that coastal communities rely on and absorb a significant amount of carbon dioxide.
Therefore, rebuilding the sunflower sea star population is vital to reviving underwater ecosystems and protecting the biodiversity they support.
The Sunflower Star Lab is raising healthy sunflower sea stars in captivity with the goal of eventually releasing them into the wild — a massive milestone for a species feared lost.
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Absolutely 💯 Once environmental conditions are stable enough, they plan to coordinate a large-scale reintroduction along the California Coast. Over time, these sea stars would help control urchin populations naturally, allowing kelp forests to recover without ongoing human intervention.
"It's kind of like the … 'you don't know what you have until it's gone' adage," Norah Eddy, associate director of the Nature Conservancy's Oceans Program in California, said. Yet, if the sunflower sea star population makes a comeback, it could "turn the tide."
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