Wasting Disease Is Attacking Sea Stars: Learn About This and More

Bureau of Land Management Press Release:

The fascinating life in tidepools will be featured in a free interpretive outing Tuesday, June 17, from 9 to 11 a.m., at Mal Coombs Park in Shelter Cove. The outing is part of a summer hikes series offered by the Bureau of Land Management and the Lost Coast Interpretive Association.

Participants should meet at the Mal Coombs Park near the Cape Mendocino lighthouse.

BLM Interpretive Specialist Rachel Sowards Thompson said participants should be prepared to get wet as they learn about the hardy forms of life that exist in tidepools.

There will also be an opportunity to meet with researchers from the University of California, Santa Cruz who are monitoring tidepool biodiversity and sea star wasting syndrome.

Sea stars along much of the North American Pacific coast are dying in great numbers from a mysterious wasting syndrome. The cause is unidentified, and it is not clear whether the syndrome is due to an environmental change, disease or something else, according to the Multi-Agency Rocky Intertidal Network.

During the outing, participants will learn about the BLM California Coastal National Monument, the rocks and islands off the California coast that have special recognition and protection as part of the BLM’s National Landscape Conservation System. The monument includes more than 20,000 rocks, islands, pinnacles and exposed reefs stretching the length of the coast from the mean high tide line and out 12 nautical miles, and about 1,600 acres of shoreline and prairies at Point Arena.

For more information or to register, call the BLM King Range Project Office, (707) 986-5400, or email [email protected].