The starfish disease, dubbed starfish wasting syndrome, is running wantonly rampant from sunny California to Alaska. The highly infectious disease is causing limbs of starfish to completely disintegrate into what is being described as white gelatin, or goo.
Lesions appearing on the sea star's body are rendering the sea dweller dead within days, and to make matters more complicated, the disease has the ability to spread to multiple species who come into contact with infected starfish with open wounds.
Scientists have been unable to answer the cause of the illness. CBS quotes Pete Raimondi, who is the chairman of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California:
"What's happening? We don't know yet. We think it's bacterial, we also know that it can move between species. They get a wound and the bacteria just kind of eat the species away."
The Press Democrat reports that starfish residing in an aquarium in the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary were blighted by the disease in San Francisco when salt water from the ocean was filtered through the tank.
As much as 95% of starfish in some tide pools are dying from starfish wasting syndrome. Researchers are asking civilians to report any unnatural starfish deaths to local officials.
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