Together with the Nature Conservancy, the California Academy of Sciences is launching a short campaign to gather observations of sea stars along our coast — the Solstice Sea Star Search!

The goal is to search and hopefully find any sea stars — especially Sunflower Stars (Pycnopodia helianthoides), a key player in the kelp ecosystem — that may be living off the coast of California.

You can go search for sea stars during the evening low tides over the four days of this project. 

Here’s how to do it:
1. Go out to local tidepools during the lowest low tide on December 20-23.
2. Document any sea stars you find on the iNaturalist app.
3. If a Sunflower Star is spotted, send an email to the iNaturalist observation link and report it on the UC Santa Cruz Sea Star Observation log here.

Find out where to tidepool with Bay Nature’s handy guide here.

Thanks for joining us in helping spot sea stars!