© Anne Brice/KCAWTaylor White pulls up a rock on Sage Beach to see three leptasterias, which are small, 6 legged sea stars that are common at this site. She points to the one with three legs and lesions, symptoms of sea star wasting disease.
A trip to the coast usually means you're going to see sea stars, but a mysterious disease is killing them along the West Coast. There had been a few reports of sick sea stars in Alaska, but recently in Sitka, the first mass die offs in the state were detected. Scientists in Sitka are tracking the progress.
Patty Dick lives on a boat in Thompson Harbor in Sitka. In the morning, when it's low tide and she has an extra moment, she goes out and checks on the sea stars living in the area.
"I just sit there in awe of the beauty of that animal," she said. "Everybody loves sea stars."
Dick teaches 6th grade biology at Blatchley Middle School. She often takes her students on field trips to learn about marine animals, and they usually find dozens of sea stars.
But one morning last month, Dick noticed something was wrong with the sea stars. "I just looked over and I just stopped.
There were these big, huge, white spots all over them and they were just wasting away. My heart just sank."
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