There are growing concerns about the future of a rare and beautiful sea creature.
Staff at the Huntsman Aquarium in St. Andrews, N.B. say starfish are usually the star attraction at the touch tank, but their numbers are rapidly declining.
“You’ve got the temperature of the water, whether it’s a seasonal variation, is it something that happens every once in awhile,” says Jim Cornall of the Huntsman Aquarium.
Cornall says even the starfish that live at the aquarium aren’t as healthy as usual.
“It seems to be a bacteria called vibrio, which is always present in the water,” says Cornall. “It’s just in such high numbers right now, that it is causing the death of a lot of sea stars.”
Genny Simard, senior interpreter at the aquarium, says, with a decrease of star fish in the touch tank, it will mean a longer life for the other ocean species.
“We let mother nature do its thing in the touch tank,” says Simard.
“So a sea star is a predator and so some of the other animals might benefit from seeing less of them in the touch tank.”
Several of the star fish washing ashore are either dead or missing limbs. Aquarium staff say the limbs can normally grow back, but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.
“It’s very troubling,” says Simard. “Although we do know that sometimes you have natural cycles that occur in the wild, where animal populations can go up and down. So without further studies, it’s hard to know what the impact will be in the long term.”
Aquarium staff say they’re not the only ones noticing an issue with star fish; they have heard similar stories through their contacts with other aquariums around the world.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Ashley Dunbar