Similar to what has happened in B.C., tens of millions of voracious purple sea urchins have chomped their way through towering underwater kelp forests in California.
Reports that the sea star population was rebounding appear to have been overly optimistic, says the Coastal Ocean Research Institute.
In just a few short years, the Northern California waters stretching from Sonoma to Southern Humboldt have undergone a dramatic transformation, with stretches stripped bare of their once varied marine life in a phenomenon known as "urchin barren."
A meteorologist says unseasonably warm weather in B.C. is once again causing a large area of the Pacific Ocean to heat up considerably, emulating a phenomenon from past years known as the “blob.”
Last year, 2014, was the hottest year ever recorded on Earth. Unlike other worldwide problems from which Canadians might feel relatively safe and isolated, but Canada is actually ground zero of global climate.
Biologist Jackie Hilderling says four years of decline in B.C.'s sea star population is due to climate change warming local waters and making the animals susceptible to sea star-associated densovirus.
It already has caused coral bleaching in Hawaii and may be tied to strandings of marine mammals along the California coast.
