Marie De Santis

Starfish Detectives Marie De Santis

In June 2013, ecologist Steve Fradkin began alerting colleagues to the startling observations he was making out on the remote Pacific shores of Washington's Olympic National Park. The starfish that for eons had flourished on this rocky coast were overnight turning into mushy globs of goo. As unsettling as the news was, it didn't begin to prepare these veteran marine scientists for the ghastly reports that started pouring in from marine stations from Alaska to Mexico. The disastrous starfish die-offs were fast becoming the largest marine wildlife disease ever recorded. Starfish Detectives is the inspiring true story of how, without protocols or funds, scientists from around the continent teamed up to unravel the disease's causes and consequences. It's a suspenseful tale of how puzzling twists and turns in the search spun out from the tranquility of tide pools into the turmoil of the planet's most pressing scientific debates.