text: This article reminds me of how much we USED to enjoy exploring all the sea life in the many tide pools and low-tide beaches of Kachemak Bay.  Sadly, in the last 10 or 15 years most of that sea life, and those low-tide invertebrates, have disappeared, most especially the shellfish, due to the population explosion among the sea otters which the Center for Coastal Studies still refuses to acknowledge.  Low tide around Chugachik Island last year, for example, only exposed tidal flats that resemble an artillery range, as the formerly abundant clam beds have been eliminated by all the sea otters who have desperately dug them up almost to the last clam, leaving gaping holes in the process.
  
  The wide diversity and abundance of intertidal sea life in Kachemak Bay is, for now anyway, mostly just a memory, and will remain so until something happens, or steps are taken, to reduce the extreme overpopulation of sea otters in those waters.