Brewing Up Sea Stars: Feeling “Hoptimistic" About Sunflower Sea Star Recovery

w/ special guests

Ashley Kidd & Andrew Kim

Sunflower Star Laboratory

They can grow wider than a bicycle tire, have more than 20 arms, and move surprisingly fast. And not long ago, sunflower sea stars were one of the most important predators along the Pacific Coast.

Then they nearly disappeared.

Beginning in 2013, sea star wasting disease swept through populations from Mexico to Alaska. Sunflower sea stars (Pycnopodia helianthoides) were hit especially hard, declining so dramatically that today they are listed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN.

If you’ve been joining us for our conversations about kelp forest recovery, you already know this story is bigger than any single species—or any single evening. We’ve talked about marine heat waves, disappearing kelp forests, booming purple urchin populations, restoration, and what it takes to rebuild an ecosystem under extraordinary pressure.

This month, we continue that kelp forest recovery story by meeting a predator that once helped keep those urchins in check—and the people working to bring it back. Because this isn’t only a story about what we lost. It’s a recovery story being written right now.

For Brewing Up Sea Stars: Feeling “Hoptimistic” About Sunflower Sea Star Recovery, we’re delighted to welcome Ashley Kidd and Andrew Kim, co-founders of Sunflower Star Laboratory, a nonprofit founded in 2021 to help restore this remarkable keystone species.

Ashley, Conservation Program Lead, and Andrew, Laboratory Manager, bring extensive experience in marine conservation aquaculture, spanning white abalone and coral conservation, kelp restoration, and marine invertebrate breeding. Together, they’re turning that experience toward one of the Pacific Coast’s most ambitious species-recovery efforts.

“What gives me hope for the ocean is being able to take action, and working with diverse, incredibly capable and passionate communities, who are all lending their unique skills and stories."

—Ashley Kidd

They’ll take us inside the otherworldly biology and life history of sunflower sea stars—why they matter, why they disappeared, and the remarkable work underway to bring them back.

It’s the next chapter in a story we’ve been following all year: kelp, urchins, predators, and the people figuring out how to put the pieces back together. Recovery is complicated, collaborative, and still unfolding—but people aren’t simply documenting decline. They’re doing something about it.

“Seeing this community grow, and being surrounded by this group of passionate and inspirational people working together towards a unified goal—also just seeing how FAST these stars can grow and how much they eat—gives me hope."

—Andrew Kim

Sometimes hope has 20 arms, an appetite for sea urchins, and a laboratory full of people determined to give it another chance.