CANNON BEACH — Mylasia Miklas was exploring the tide pools around Haystack Rock this month when she spotted what looked like a baby octopus.

The tides were especially low, and after taking a closer look, Miklas, a communications coordinator with the Haystack Rock Awareness Program, screamed with excitement when she realized it was a young sunflower sea star.

She rushed to alert others with the program.

“That was definitely a top tide pool moment for me was being able to find that,” Miklas said, adding that it is the first sunflower sea star spotted by the rock in years.

Researchers estimate about 99% of the population along the West Coast has been decimated since the onset of sea star wasting syndrome in 2013.

The near extinction triggered the International Union for Conservation of Nature to classify the species as critically endangered in December 2020. Earlier this year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced a proposal to list the sunflower sea star as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act.

The sunflower sea star spotted at Haystack Rock was one of five young sunflower sea stars reported along the Oregon Coast in the same week, according to the Oregon Department Fish and Wildlife.

Steven Rumrill, the shellfish program leader at the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, said the sightings provide some optimism regarding the population.

Of the other young sunflower sea stars spotted, he said three were observed at the mouth of Netarts Bay and one was snagged in a fisherman’s hook off of Port Orford.

Rumrill said the five “provides us with a feeling that somewhere along the coastline here there are sufficient numbers of adults and that they are successfully fending off the sea star mortality.

“And also, most importantly, getting together in close enough proximity to ensure successful fertilization.”

While there are some hot spots for adult sea stars in the Salish Sea, Puget Sound area and along the outer coasts of British Columbia and Alaska, Rumrill said, researchers have not seen densities of adults getting together along the Oregon Coast.

“So it’s good news,” he said. “And it gives us some hope for optimism.”

Rumrill is one of the leading experts on the West Coast who contributed to the “Roadmap to Recovery for the Sunflower Sea Star,” a document published last year that aims to guide scientists and conservationists.

The roadmap, which details near- and medium-term steps to prevent further declines and foster recovery, notes that little is known about the species.

Sunflower sea stars are among the largest in the world.

Their decline has been linked to the troubling declines in kelp forests along the West Coast, since they are predators to the kelp-eating sea urchin. Without the sunflower sea star, sea urchin populations have increased.

While the cause of sea star wasting syndrome has not been conclusively identified, the Roadmap to Recovery points to evidence that warming ocean waters from human-caused climate change increases the severity of the disease, and could even be responsible for triggering the outbreak.

Researchers believe climate change may also hinder recovery efforts, especially in the warmer, southern end of the West Coast.

Kelli Ennis, the director of the Haystack Rock Awareness Program, said that in the past year, the program has noticed a few more sea star species that have not been observed in a while.

She added that in the last three years, the program has seen more juvenile sea stars, which have not shown signs of sea star wasting syndrome like some of the larger, older sea stars.

“We were optimistic starting last year that we may have started to see that rebound effect happen,” Ennis said. “And of course, what we were really always hoping for is to see a sunflower again.”

Ennis and Miklas said that while the news is exciting, the ecosystem is still in recovery and that people should not touch or pick up sea stars.

“I do have to say that if we weren’t there monitoring and protecting the rock, I definitely don’t think that having that baby sunflower sea star would have been possible just because Haystack is so well loved,” Miklas said, adding that it may not have survived without the protection.