All I know is what I've seen at Shark's Cove and other places over the past 40yrs. I sadly agree with Buzzy Agard's comment from the first article "It's like the moon...". The loss is terribly obvious from looking at the tidepools. Back in the early 60's, these were aquariums of life. During late summer, the limestone pockets at Pupukea were full of juvenile raccoons, milletseeds, mamos, kupipi's, manini's, wrasses, aholeholes, crabs, opae shrimp, eels, anemones, sea lettuce, you-name-it. There was no need to dive. Simply sticking your face into a tidepool was enough to know the whole variety and health of the sea. But now, except for the odd hermit crab and jumping jack and bleached cowery and urchin, they're barren. The same can be said of Sandy Beach and Makapuu. Nanakuli. Yokohama Bay. Laie. Why, even the now muddy, stinking Ala Moana Park canal once supported millions of glass-bodied opae shrimp and blooms of delicate moon jellies. Maui has not escaped, especially its southern shores. Nor has the coast along Hilo and Kailua-Kona.
As stated by the quantum principle of microscopic phenomenon, we cannot even "passively" observe without disturbing the observed. Perhaps that truth also holds at the larger scale.
But all is not grim. In the main Ala Moana swimming channel, I've found large boulders and even whole large coral heads with clouds of domino damsels and butterflys and Moorish Idols; the resting spot of the larger of two resident turtles is a large boulder just a few tens of yards out from the east (Waikiki-side) lifeguard tower. A couple of weeks ago, I found a flame and Potter's angel, both swimming along some boat slips at the Heeia Kea boat ramp. Last summer near the Falls of Clyde, I again saw a trio of juvenile kagami (mirror-sided, threadfin trevally). They're all still out there. You just have to be more alert for the opportunities.
