May 04, 2015 10:50 AM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

After suffering a massive die-off, sea stars living off the coast of Washington state are showing a highly encouraging sign of recovery: babies.

Speaking with the Associated Press, biologist Ben Miner described a recent dive near Washington's coast in which he observed populations of sea stars hit hard by a disease that has inflicted the animal all the way down the West Coast. But as the sea stars fall apart - which happens quite literally when infected - they seem ready to bounce back with a new batch of youngsters.

"Babies. That's what we hope for," Miner told the AP. "If you're hoping for sea star populations to recover, it's the best news you can get to be able to go to sites and see that there are babies."

An associate professor of biology at Western Washington University, Miner said other studies have also noticed a high number of young sea stars along the West Coast. One site in Santa Cruz, Calif. showed more baby starfish than there were in the past 15 years combined, the AP reported.

But Miner is holding back in calling it a comeback, even though juveniles appear to have a better inner defense against the nasty disease.

"The question is when these babies get big, will you expect them to die like the adults?" he said.

Another byproduct of the good news will be future studies that track some of the young sea stars as they grow into adulthood.

"We want them back," Peg Tillery, a volunteer who helped inspect baby sea stars at the Hood Canal in Washington, told the AP. "They're part of the ecosystem. If they go away, what goes away next?"

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