Sea Center Welcomes Sunflower Sea Star Siblings Seeking to Support Species Recovery
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (KEYT) – The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History's Sea Center recently added two new residents hoping to battle back from the edge of extinction.
The pair Sunflower Sea Stars (Pycnopodia helianthoides) boast 18 arms and use tube-shaped indents on the underside of their arms that include thousands of tube feet to move about as they hunt for prey.
Sunflower Sea Stars are the world's largest sea star species. They can grow to have an arm-to-arm span that can reach a meter, can end up with as many as 24 arms, and can weigh as much as five kilograms.
They can be purple, orange, blue, brown, yellow, and combinations of all five and range from along the eastern Pacific coastline, from Baja Mexico up to the Aleutian Islands of Alaska.
Titan, the largest star at the Sunflower Star Laboratory, a non-profit that raises sea stars and works to restore kelp forests alongside partner organizations, measures over a foot long and was observed consuming 44 juvenile urchins in a single day.
Eating urchins, especially Purple Urchins (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus), plays a crucial role in regulating the health of another iconic life form, kelp.
The "pale purple urchin eaters", as the Sea Center affectionately referred to the aquarium's newest Sunflower Sea Star residents, are looking to bounce back after the sea star wasting disease of 2013-2014, one of the largest marine disease events ever recorded, devastated their species, even more than other sea star species, nearly driving them to extinction.
As sea star populations died in large numbers, urchin populations grew and moved from passively grazing on drifting kelp while avoiding their multi-armed predators to actively eating growing kelp.
"When they stopped smelling Sunflower Stars nearby, urchins spent less time hiding and more time eating," explained Executive Director Reuven Bank at the Sunflower Star Laboratory. "They switched from passively grazing on drift kelp to actively chomping through stipes and holdfasts, razing vast swathes of kelp forests."
On December 10, 2020, the International Union for Conservation of Nature listed the Sunflower Sea Star as critically endangered after an estimated loss of 5.75 billion individual Sunflower Sea Stars, a global population decline of about 90.6 percent detailed the state of Oregon.
Endangered Species Act protections for the ailing sea stars has been proposed, but not yet approved.
It took until 2001 for the first marine invertebrate species, the White Abalone, to be protected under the Endangered Species Act and the population's bounce back thanks to conservation efforts, including right here at the Sea Center, give hope for the Sunflower Sea Star.
"The success of the White Abalone Recovery Project serves as an example of the power of collaborative conservation in action, and has informed our approach to Sunflower Star recovery," shared the Sea Center's Executive Director Reuven Bank. "Sunflower Star Laboratory serves as a keystone institution for the restoration of this keystone predator alongside dozens of partners, co-leading coordination, research, aquaculture, and outplanting efforts to supercharge the return of Sunflower Stars to the wild and give our dwindling kelp forests a fighting chance."
During the spread of the disease, Sunflower Sea Stars living at the Sea Center were not spared the devastation.
"We had Sunflower Stars here during the disease outbreak, and they basically self-destructed," Sea Center Director Rich Smalldon shared. "I came in one day and there were detached arms everywhere. It was shocking and without warning."
The sea star wasting disease can progress as rapidly as Smalldon described and recent research suggests it may be caused by a strain of bacteria that is still present in local waters noted the Sea Center requiring conservationists to limit their exposure to unsterilized seawater noted the Sea Center.
According to kelpwatch.org, around 95 percent of Northern California's kelp forests have disappeared in the last ten years, in no small part due to urchin overgrazing.
Kelp forests have a major impact on their environment.
They mitigate climate change and ocean acidification by storing notable quantities of carbon and localizing the production of oxygen, slowing beach degradation, and help create thriving habitats for a variety of creatures even after they die and are washed ashore.
On June 15, Sunflower Star Laboratory brought sibling Sunflower Sea Stars from the Cupid Cohort, a group raised from eggs collaboratively spawned and fertilized at the Birch Aquarium on February 14, 2024.
The dynamic duo are now on display at the Sea Center and will serve as Southern California ambassadors for their entire species shared the regional aquarium.
For more information about the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History Sea Center on Stearns Wharf, click here.
