{"id":797,"date":"2026-06-23T16:34:03","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T16:34:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sanfranciscomovingguide.com\/?p=797"},"modified":"2026-06-23T16:34:03","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T16:34:03","slug":"california-lost-these-iconic-sea-creatures-years-ago-a-family-just-reappeared","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sanfranciscomovingguide.com\/?p=797","title":{"rendered":"California lost these iconic sea creatures years ago. A family just reappeared."},"content":{"rendered":"
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As an infamous marine heat wave ramped up more than a decade ago, sunflower sea stars fell sick and all but disappeared from California waters.\u00a0<\/p>

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But scientists refused to stop searching for the keystone species,\u00a0Pycnopodiahelianthoides, <\/em>one of the world\u2019s largest sea stars, known for hunting California\u2019s rocky reefs with up to 24 arms. The loss of the big stars shifted California\u2019s marine ecosystems wildly, including by allowing prey like purple sea urchins to gobble up collapsing kelp forests.<\/p><\/div>

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Last summer, a large group of research partners\u00a0\u2014 including the\u00a0Kashia Band of Pomo Indians, Greater Farallones and Cordell Bank national marine sanctuaries, the Nature Conservancy and Sonoma State University\u00a0\u2014 gathered on the Sonoma Couny coast near Sea Ranch, investigating a cove where a diver had stumbled upon one wild sunflower sea star. They found 18. \u00a0<\/p><\/div>

\u201cFor those who\u2019d seen them prior to wasting disease, it must have been akin to seeing an old friend, but I felt more like a stunned paleontologist seeing a dinosaur,\u201d\u00a0Tyler Mears, a specialist for the Greater Farallones Kelp Restoration Project who was one of the scuba divers in the\u00a0underwater search,\u00a0said in a statement.\u00a0<\/p><\/div>

Although there have been a few rare sightings in California since the massive die-off that started in 2013, the Sea Ranch discovery marks the largest group of sunflower sea stars spotted in state waters yet.\u00a0<\/p><\/div>

The research team did not share the find with the public until now. Yet, according to Rietta Hohman, the kelp restoration project manager for Greater Farallones Association, researchers have raced to learn more about the survivors over the past year.<\/p><\/div>

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\u201cWhat was so exciting about the\u00a0Sonoma County site was there were larger, not just little, individuals at a density that could be meaningful for reproduction,\u201d Lauren Schiebelhut, an affiliate with University of California,\u00a0Merced, who is\u00a0analyzing genetic samples from the 18 stars, told SFGATE. \u201cIf you just have an isolated star, then it\u2019s not doing much for the population.\u201d\u00a0<\/p><\/div>

Schiebelhut hopes to have some findings by the end of this summer that build upon a breakthrough study published last year, which revealed that a bacteria called Vibrio pectenicida had caused the sea star to waste away.<\/p><\/div>

\u201cUltimately, we\u2019re interested in how these new stars fit into the conservation landscape,\u201d\u00a0Schiebelhut said. \u201cSo where are they coming from? What do they look like? What do the pathogen dynamics look like?\u201d<\/p><\/div>

The ongoing efforts to monitor and restore sunflower sea stars in California are extensive, including initiatives to introduce disease-resistant stars cultured in the lab to the ocean.<\/p>

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But time is of the essence. Marine biologists believe\u00a0there\u2019s a link between the wasting disease and warming ocean temperatures. Right now, a historic heat wave has been cooking the Pacific for months, and the forecast very strong El Ni\u00f1o\u00a0could warm temperatures even more.<\/p><\/div>

\u201cThe warmer ocean temperatures could negatively impact\u00a0pycnopodia, and that\u2019s why we\u2019re all trying to get plenty of data and trying to document where they are,\u201d\u00a0Schiebelhut added. \u201cThere could be serious consequences, given it\u2019s documented that the sharp decline for pycnopodia was right on top of some temperature extremes. Those warm waters negatively impact them presumably because of the pathogen, but there could also be other factors that increase their susceptibility to wasting associated with temperature.\u201d<\/p><\/div>

Peter\u00a0Raimondi, a marine biology professor at UC Santa Cruz, recalled seeing the rapid effects of the disease while taking one of his classes diving in Monterey Bay in 2013. At first, everything looked normal.<\/p><\/div>

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