Park Service must consider harm to sea stars
Recent high coliform counts at several Point Reyes National Seashore waterways prompt us to raise concern for the health of proximate marine invertebrates.
Western Watershed Project commissioned tests Jan. 27 and 28 which showed E. coli or enterococci levels two to 300 times higher than accepted standards in Kehoe and Abbotts creeks and lagoons. The National Park Service tested park water quality from 2000 to 2013, but not subsequently. In 2013, the Pacific Coast experienced a massive die-off of sea stars. In December 2013 and twice in 2014, The Multi-Agency Rocky Intertidal Network observed sea star wasting disease (SSW) at Santa Maria Creek to Drakes Bay. Disease was not observed there from 2015-2019, or at McClure’s Beach in 2018, as sea star populations showed some recovery.
In June 2020 at Kehoe Beach, as volunteers for San Francisco State University researcher Sarah Cohen, we observed many sea stars with SSW signs and many dead mussels and barnacles. In August 2020, our McClure’s survey revealed more than 50 Pisaster ochraceus with SSW characteristics — twisting, white patches, missing rays and “melting.”
In January 2021, the group study “Evidence that microorganisms at the animal-water interface drive sea star wasting disease” was published. It substantiates that organic matter, possibly from land-based sources, could be responsible. The data are consistent with worldwide cases of marine disease linked to human-derived contamination of oceans.
Sea stars are a keystone species critical for maintaining the ecological balance in the ocean’s intertidal and subtidal zones. California’s North Coast is struggling with kelp forest loss from overgrowth of sea urchins normally controlled by sea stars. The NPS has been delinquent in monitoring water contamination at Point Reyes. As it contemplates a 20-year commitment to ranching in Point Reyes, it needs to reconsider implications for life in the adjacent Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary.
— Elizabeth Schriock,
Corte Madera, and Carol Hunt, Woodacre