Oct. 8, 2014
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------HOST INTRO:
A DEADLY DISEASE HAS BEEN WIPING OUT WEST COAST STARFISH FOR
MORE THAN A YEAR.
IT’S CALLED SEA STAR WASTING SYNDROME AND IT CAUSES STARFISH TO
DIE IN A PARTICULARLY GRUESOME FASHION. THEY LOSE ARMS AND
TURN INTO PILES OF MUSH.
ONE PLACE THAT HAS HELD OFF THE DISEASE THE LONGEST IS ALASKA -SCIENTISTS RECENTLY TRAVELED THERE TO SEARCH FOR NEW CLUES.
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT KATIE CAMPBELL OF KCTS-SEATTLE HAS
THIS REPORT. SHE WORKS FOR THE ENVIRONMENTAL PUBLIC MEDIA
PARTNERSHIP EARTHFIX.
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IS ALASKA SAFE FOR SEA STARS?
IT'S EARLY MORNING IN SITKA, ALASKA.
THE STARS HAVE YET TO FADE FROM THE NIGHT SKY.
A GROUP OF SCIENTISTS ARE SETTING OUT IN SEARCH OF A DIFFERENT KIND OF
STAR.
SEA STARS, COMMONLY KNOWN AS STARFISH, HAVE BEEN VANISHING FROM
ALASKA’S SHORELINE.
Pete Raimondi: These cracks ... in the previous years would be full of guys, they’re really
empty this year. You guys didn’t see any last time either did, you? No. Back in June?
PETER RAIMONDI IS ONE OF THE LEAD SCIENTISTS STUDYING AN ALARMING
EPIDEMIC THAT’S BEEN KILLING STARFISH BY THE MILLIONS.
RAIMONDI AND RESEARCHER MELISSA MINER HAVE BEEN CONDUCTING INTENSIVE
SURVEYS OF PACIFIC COASTAL AREAS -- TRACKING THE SPREAD OF THE DISEASE.
Pete Raimondi: Almost everywhere we’ve looked in the last year we’ve seen
catastrophic losses of sea stars.
RAIMONDI POUNDS BOLTS IN THE ROCKS SO THAT YEAR AFTER YEAR, THEY CAN
FIND AND SURVEY THE SAME AREAS.
ONCE THEY’VE ROPED OFF A PATCH OF SHORELINE, THEIR TEAM COUNTS AND
MEASURES THE CREATURES THAT LIVE HERE.
SITKA WAS ONE OF THE FIRST PLACES THEY NOTICED SIGNS OF THE DISEASE LAST
YEAR. NOW THE TEAM IS BACK TO CHECK ON THE STARS -- THE QUESTION IS, WILL
STARFISH IN THE COOL WATERS OF ALASKA SURVIVE THIS OUTBREAK? OR WILL
THEY, TOO, SUCCUMB?
Melissa Miner: It’s definitely not severely wasted, but those are what we’re calling early
warning signs of wasting. This is the beginnings of two separate lesions, and sometimes
what we see is that this will grow together and actually, the whole tissue will kind of
degrade.
THE SYMPTOMS VARY DEPENDING ON THE SPECIES OF STARFISH -- BUT IT USUALLY
STARTS THE SAME WAY.
Pete Raimondi: They get white lesions. They become necrotic, that means the tissue
dies. And as the tissue dies, they often times will lose arms and then waste away. They
disintegrate.
Melissa Miner: Sometimes they get lesions and their internal organs start to spill
out of these lesions. And that can happen within 24-48 hours.
STARFISH DEATHS WERE FIRST REPORTED IN THE SUMMER OF 2013 ON
WASHINGTON’S OLYMPIC PENINSULA. REPORTS HAVE SINCE SURFACED ALONG
THOUSANDS MILES OF NORTH AMERICA’S PACIFIC SHORES.
SEA STAR WASTING SYNDROME AFFECTS ALMOST EVERY SPECIES OF WEST COAST
STARFISH.
THE PLAGUE HAS HIT SO HARD OVER THE PAST YEAR THAT BIOLOGISTS FEAR THAT
SOME SPECIES COULD EVEN GO EXTINCT.
SCIENTISTS HAVE BEEN SCRAMBLING TO FIND ANSWERS.
DREW HARVELL IS COORDINATING NATIONWIDE RESEARCH INTO UNDERSTANDING
THE WASTING SYNDROME AND HAS BEEN STUDYING MARINE DISEASES FOR
DECADES.
Drew Harvell: This is the largest disease outbreak that we know of ever in the
oceans in terms of the numbers of species affected, in terms of the geographic
scale, and in terms of the mortality that’s associated with it.
AFTER ANALYZING COUNTLESS SAMPLES IN THE LAB, HARVELL’S TEAM BELIEVES
THAT AN INFECTIOUS PATHOGEN -- LIKE A BACTERIA OR VIRUS -- MAY BE THE ROOT
OF THE PROBLEM.
Drew Harvell: This is what we call a wide host range pathogen. It means that it affects
many different species. And those are the most dangerous in wildlife disease in terms of
a potential risk of extinction.
THEY’VE LEARNED THE SYNDROME SEEMS TO SPREAD THROUGH WATER AND
PHYSICAL CONTACT.
AND THEY’RE TESTING A HYPOTHESIS THAT THE PATHOGEN MAY BE TRANSFERRED
THROUGH SHELLFISH, WHICH STARFISH LIKE TO EAT.
EXACTLY WHAT TRIGGERS THESE OUTBREAKS IS STILL UNKNOWN, BUT SCIENTISTS
THINK THE DISEASE COULD BE COMPOUNDED BY WARMING WATERS.
STARFISH ARE STRESSED BY HIGHER TEMPERATURES, WHICH MAKE THEM MORE
VULNERABLE TO INFECTION.
HARVELL HAS BEEN KEEPING AN EYE ON THE ONCE ABUNDANT STARFISH
POPULATIONS AROUND WASHINGTON’S SAN JUAN ISLANDS.
COLD WATER HERE MAY HAVE HELPED STARFISH WITHSTAND THE FIRST WAVE OF
THE DISEASE.
BUT SUMMERTIME BROUGHT WARMER WATERS TO THE ISLANDS, AND HARVELL AND
HER TEAM WATCHED STARS SUDDENLY GET SICK.
Drew Harvell: I’m expecting that in the next two weeks we will lose virtually all of
the stars at this site.
AND THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED -- ALL OF THE STARFISH THAT WERE HERE
ARE NOW GONE.
AS OUTBREAKS CONTINUE IN PUGET SOUND, SCIENTISTS ARE LOOKING NORTH FOR
A SIGN OF HOPE.
DREW HARVELL: The hope is that the waters are cold enough in Alaska, the northern
part of their range for many of these species, that they’ll persist there.
THIS SUMMER, MELISSA MINER WAS HOPEFUL THAT WOULD BE THE CASE.
Melissa Miner: This is one of the few places that could potentially be a source of
replenishment for some of these areas that have been hit really hard.
BACK IN SITKA, TROUBLE IS ON THE HORIZON. IN RECENT MONTHS WATER
TEMPERATURES HERE HAVE BEEN HIGHER THAN NORMAL -- AND THIS FALL A BAND
OF WARM PACIFIC WATER IS EXPECTED TO TRAVEL FARTHER NORTH HEATING UP
THE WATERS HERE EVEN MORE.
TO PREPARE, RAIMONDI IS IN INSTALLING SENSORS WILL MEASURE THE WATER
TEMPERATURE.
Pete Raimondi: So we’ll get really good records over the next year of temperature. Then
we can see whether that relates to any change in the disease that we see at this
particular site.
THAT WAY IF A MASS DIE-OFF OCCURS, THEY’LL KNOW THE EXACT OCEAN
CONDITIONS.
THERE’S NOTHING THE RESEARCHERS CAN DO TO PREVENT AN OUTBREAK. BUT
THEY CAN COUNT AND MEASURE WHAT’S HERE NOW.
THEIR DATA WILL PROVIDE A CRITICAL POINT OF COMPARISON FOR WHAT NORMAL
STARFISH POPULATIONS SHOULD BE.
Pete Raimondi: If you don’t know what’s there, you don’t know what’s lost.
THE RESULTS OF THE ALASKA INTERTIDAL SURVEYS ARE MIXED.
Melissa Miner: This is probably the worst one that we’ve seen here today. You can see
here the whole area that’s diseased. But the good thing is that there’s not a really high
percentage of diseased animals.
WITHOUT KNOWING THE CAUSE OF THESE OUTBREAKS, IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO TELL
WHETHER THE EPIDEMIC IS NEARLY FINISHED OR WHETHER ANOTHER MASS DIEOFF IS JUST GETTING STARTED.
Pete Raimondi: If we knew what was causing it, we would have a much better
understanding of where we are, but not knowing where we are in the chronology of this
event is really frustrating and kinda scary.
AFTER LEAVING SITKA, RAIMONDI AND MINER BEGAN RECEIVING DISTURBING
REPORTS. THE HEALTHY-LOOKING STARS THEY CAREFULLY COUNTED JUST DAYS
BEFORE WERE SUDDENLY LOSING ARMS AND WASTING AWAY.
TIME WILL TELL WHETHER ALASKA WILL BE A STARFISH GRAVEYARD OR A REFUGE.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------OUT TAG:
STARFISH WASTING HAS ALSO BEEN REPORTED ALONG THE EAST COAST.
BUT WITHOUT SIMILAR SHORELINE MONITORING PROGRAMS THERE, IT’S BEEN
DIFFICULT TO MEASURE THE EXTENT OF THE OUTBREAKS.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------CREDITS:
Produced and written by
Katie Campbell
Photography by
Greg Davis
Laura James
Katie Campbell
Starfish map graphic by
Madeleine Pisaneschi
Editor
Greg Davis
Music
“Inglorious” written by Brian Flores, John Hunter Jr., Jonathan Slott, Jonathan Still, FirstCom
Music
“Primary Research” written by Daniel Burrows, Daniel Mallender, Thomas Hill, FirstCom Music
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Nov. 17, 2014 -- follow up breaking news report
Scientists Solve Mystery of West Coast
Starfish Plague
AFTER MONTHS OF RESEARCH, SCIENTISTS HAVE IDENTIFIED THE PATHOGEN AT
THE HEART OF THE STARFISH WASTING DISEASE.
THEY SAY IT’S DIFFERENT FROM ALL OTHER KNOWN VIRUSES INFECTING MARINE
ORGANISMS.
THEY’VE DUBBED IT “SEA STAR ASSOCIATED DENSOVIRUS.”
Ian Hewson: “When you look on a scale of hundreds and hundreds of animals, which we
did, it’s very clear that the virus is associated with symptomatic sea stars”
IAN HEWSON IS A MICROBIOLOGIST AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY. HE’S THE LEAD
AUTHOR OF THE STUDY. HE SAYS IT’S RARE TO FIGURE OUT WHAT CAUSES MARINE
DISEASES.
Ian Hewson: In every drop of seawater there’s 10 million viruses that basically we’ve had
to sort through to try to find the virus that is responsible for this disease. So to find that
one virus has been a real challenge.
RESEARCHERS COLLECTED TISSUE SAMPLES AND ANALYZED THEM FOR ALL THE
POSSIBLE PATHOGENS.
ONCE THEY HAD IDENTIFIED A LEADING CANDIDATE, THEY TESTED IT BY INJECTING
THE DENSOVIRUS INTO HEALTHY STARFISH IN AN AQUARIUM. THEN THEY WATCHED
TO SEE IF THE DISEASE TOOK HOLD.
Ian Hewson: When we inoculated them, they died within about a week to 14 days.
Whereas controls that had received viruses that had been destroyed by heat, did not
become sick.
WHAT’S STRANGE - SAYS HEWSON - IS THAT WEST COAST STARFISH HAVE BEEN
LIVING WITH THE VIRUS FOR DECADES.
RESEARCHERS DETECTED THE DENSOVIRUS IN PRESERVED STARFISH SPECIMENS
FROM AS FAR BACK AS THE 1940S.
IAN HEWSON: “It’s probably been sort of smoldering at a low level for a very long
time.”
Something seems to have been the trigger to make this from some sort of benign
infection into something that is really widespread and affecting so many different
species.
NOW THAT SCIENTISTS HAVE IDENTIFIED THE VIRUS, THE NEXT STEP FOR
HEWSON’S TEAM IS INVESTIGATING WHAT ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS
MIGHT MAKE STARFISH MORE SUSCEPTIBLE TO IT.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------CREDITS:
Produced and written by
Katie Campbell
Photography by
Greg Davis
Laura James
Katie Campbell
Editor
Katie Campbell