Massive Die-Off Of Sea Stars, Other Species Under Way In Kachemak Bay, AK
JAKOLOF BAY — I came to the beach to count sea star corpses. You might know them as starfish — stiff, five-pointed bodies like a child's drawing of a star, crayon-bright. About 10 species once were common in the intertidal zone here, with different colors and shapes and numbers of rays — hundreds of which had been dismembered and scattered over the beach, as if a monster had stalked through before us, tearing their bodies apart.
The monster is sea star wasting disease. Broken patches on the skin turn into fissures, with brown globs of sea star insides leaking through the cracks. Within days, the stars turn limp, fall off rocks, shed arms and melt away into soft, wet puddles. The tide sweeps over them, scattering their last remains. We're left with an absence, another mystery, and an ocean that seems to be shifting too quickly for anyone to keep up.
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It was also the second summer in a row with no clams or clammers on Ninilchik beaches, and no young clams to promise a recovery. Otters washed up dead on the shores of Kachemak Bay. Dead whales rotted on the surface, and live whales lingered in our fjords late into last winter, months past their usual departure.
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Katie Aspen Gavenus, a naturalist with the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies, was one of the first to notice the dying sea stars. Gavenus' job has her out in tidepools all summer, teaching schoolchildren and guests about the creatures. She could always make an impression with a sunflower star. Bright orange to deep purple, these stars are larger than the lid of a 5-gallon bucket, with up to two dozen creeping arms. They're voracious predators, simultaneously fuzzy, spiny and slimy to the touch, gliding over the kelp beds with startling speed.
"I picked up one that appeared to be completely healthy, and I was showing it to some guests — a family — supporting it with two hands," she said. "Then a ray fell off. Then another one. I knew what was happening, but I didn't know how to explain it to them — that it was dying in front of their eyes."
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https://www.adn.com/alaska-life/we-alaskans/2016/11/13/kachemak-bay-has-witnessed-massive-die-offs-of-sea-stars-and-other-species-whats-going-on/
