MARINE LIFE -- Researchers in Oregon and Northern California are finding that droves of baby sea stars are returning to the shores after whole populations of starfish along the West Coast were decimated by a wasting disease over the last two years.

The Eureka Times Standard reports data shows an unprecedented number of baby sea stars survived during the summer and winter of 2015.

Experts say that while it is encouraging to see the abundance of baby sea stars, competition, environmental factors and a deadly wasting disease make their survival difficult.

A virus killed millions of sea stars on the Pacific Coast from Southern California to Alaska by causing them to lose their limbs and eventually disintegrate into slime and piles of tiny bones.