Vale, Derwent River Seastar

September 20, 2018
Thami Croeser

“RIP little star
sorry your light
has gone out “

Yesterday at a team meeting, we took a moment to bid farewell to the Derwent River Seastar, which was found to be extinct after a fairly complex process of laboratory intrigue. This makes it the fourth species in Australia thusly departed this decade, and its timing is poignant – we just submitted our submission to the Senate Enquiry into Australia’s Faunal Extinction Crisis.

The dearly departed Marginaster Littoralis.

Despite the Seastar being a fairly obscure beast that lacks soft fur or big, wet eyes full of relatable sentiment, we felt an unusual sorrow. After a bit of reflection we tracked this back to the fact that the Seastar was in fact our cake entry to last year’s Threatened Species Bakeoff (yes, the very bakeoff that First Dog cleverly skewered earlier this month).

Our 2017 seastar cake, made with awareness-raising flour. Might also work as a parma.

Pause for thought for conservation psych gurus like Matthew and Alex: does any engagement with a species, however non-charismatic, even baking it as a cake, help us care about its conservation status? Are there lessons for less-than-charismatically named organisms that Emily studies, like the Bastard Grunt or Depressed River Mussel.

Is the story of our baked gingerbread Seastar a fitting final message? Or is icing sugar just not the answer?

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