Sea Star Wasting Disease has caused sea stars to die off since 2013. As of 2018, there are still no sea stars on Bishops Beach in Homer.
Sea star wasting syndrome, or disease as it has become known, hit Kachemak Bay hard in 2016, killing about 90 percent of sunflower and true star populations.
A starfish that did not appear healthy.
Near MacDonald Spit, southern end of the Kenai Peninsula.
Sea star wasting syndrome was first documented in Kachemak Bay in 2014, but it wasn’t until last summer that the mysterious infection began killing sea stars in large numbers.
Sea star wasting disease, a type of densovirus, reduced the count of sea stars in Kachemak Bay from 180 last spring to a measly five this year.
Similar to what has happened in B.C., tens of millions of voracious purple sea urchins have chomped their way through towering underwater kelp forests in California.
Observations From Members 