Starfish At Risk

 Sea Stars Critically Endangered

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

In philosophy and literature, the starfish is a symbol of enlightenment, magical powers and renewal. It’s able to regenerate and grow back limbs.

For all its abilities, though, it's currently facing a threat that could be even more powerful than it is – a wasting disease that is threatening to wipe out the whole starfish population.

Also known as sea stars, the colorful species found off the West Coast of North America is rapidly vanishing from sight.

“I’ve never seen a decline of this magnitude of a species,” said Drew Harvell, the lead author of a study in the journal Science Advances that first brought attention to the plight of the sea stars.

Once they were “as common as a robin,” Harvell observed, noting it was hard to imagine what was happening to them. A marine ecologist at Cornell University, she calls the epidemic "catastrophic and widespread" and explores this in her groundbreaking book Ocean Outbreak.

Brought on partly by rising sea temperatures from global warming, the illness is affecting more than 20 types of starfish, with the sunflower sea stars normally found in the deep waters of the Pacific Northwest among the most susceptible.

The starfish aren't the only ones at risk. As their numbers drop, it causes a ripple effect that endangers other sea life who depend on them to keep the ocean's ecosystem in balance.

Starfish eat sea urchins, which eat the ocean's kelp beds that provide food and shelter to sea life and help remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Without the starfish to keep the sea urchins in check, the voracious urchins are devouring the kelp beds. To counter this, scientists at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography and in Monterey at the Sunflower Star Laboratory are all trying to reverse the decline of the starfish.  

To save the starfish and other endangered marine life we’ll need more than magic. It will take scientists, government, and environmental groups working together as a community.

    

SurfWriter Girls

Surf’n Beach Scene Magazine

Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted material. Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com Individuals and non-profit groups are welcome to post it on social media sites as long as credit is given. 

Cindy Lee's National Bucket List Day!

 National Day Calendar Ambassador Creates Special Day

 

Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel

What's on your Bucket List? Places to go? Things to do? Dreams to achieve? Most of us have a Bucket List simmering on the back burner.

 

Thanks to Cindy Lee of Huntington Beach, CA, now there's a National Bucket List Day – April 24th – designated just for celebrating your Bucket List and the things you've accomplished.

 

Both a dreamer and a doer, Cindy is an avid Bucket List creator. She uses the lists to keep on track to turning her dreams into reality. The lists help her to stay focused and prioritize things. 

Cindy says, "A Bucket List isn't just about travel destinations. It's about facing your fears, taking on challenges and living your dreams." One of the dreams she's close to checking off is writing her first book, "Growing Your Business through Referrals and National Days."  

A travel agent, CFO (Chief Fun Officer) with Bucket List Coach Travel & Tours and a travel blogger, she helps others check off the items on their lists, too. She wanted to encourage even more people to go after their dreams. And she had just the way to do it!

 

As an Ambassador for the National Day Calendar, she loves getting the word out about all the special National Days to celebrate – Pizza Day, Dolphin Day, Find a Rainbow Day. So, why not a National Bucket List Day? The NDC team agreed – and the new Calendar Day was launched in 2023.

Cindy, whose personal Bucket List includes exotic travel destinations, podcasting, writing, business coaching, and volunteering, spends a lot of time supporting Huntington Beach and working with the nonprofit Surfrider Foundation.

 

Cindy told SurfWriter Girls, “You get two dates and a dash. There is the day you were born and the day you pass away! The dash is the in between time. The important part is to live your dash.”

 

She says a Bucket List gives you something to look forward to. And, after you check off each item, something to be grateful for. After watching surfers from the shore, she got up her nerve to take a surfing lesson with Rocky McKinnon – and checked that off her list. She had a blast!

Now, with an attitude for gratitude, Cindy Lee is living her life "with purpose and joy"...one check mark at a time!  

SurfWriter Girls

Surf’n Beach Scene Magazine

Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted material. Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com Individuals and non-profit groups are welcome to post it on social media sites as long as credit is given.