Tuesday June 9, 2026
The Washington Post —
For much of his career, Bruce Menge assumed he would conduct the same research until he died. The marine biologist has studied sea stars since the 1970s, and the animals had always seemed more solid a bet than others in the ocean. They have no natural enemies, regenerate limbs when they lose them and reproduce prolifically.
Then, just over a decade ago, a mysterious disease wiped out 90 percent of the West Coast’s sea star population. Tide pools emptied, and Menge had no idea what might become of his work.
“I was upset,” Menge said. “I thought these animals were immortal.”
Little did he know, some of the biggest and busiest days of his career were still ahead of him.
Menge is 82, but he clambered over a mussel bed one windy morning in mid-May faster than any of the biology students working alongside him. He took a seat in a spot that would soon become part of the Pacific Ocean, and he peered down at something he hadn’t seen much of in the decades he’d been coming to this Oregon Coast tide pool — a teeny-tiny sea star, no bigger than his fingernail.