Sorry Collegues,
Catherine informed me the link did not work. Just Google the heading above and
it will come up. Here is a print of one page where-in a NOAA biologist is
involved as well as Urchin commercial divers from San Pedro:
A fast-growing alga, giant kelp is the backbone of a rich coastal ecosystem.
Its translucent green blades, held afloat with gas-filled bladders, tower up
from the seafloor to form canopies that provide shelter and nutrients for a
diverse marine community.
Yet over the last century, kelp declined steeply off the California coast as
storm runoff, erosion and other shore-based pollution clouded the water and
made it harder for sunlight to penetrate. As kelp struggled -- and predators
like sheephead, lobsters and sea otters declined -- sea urchins moved in.
"Now these [urchin populations] are so large and so well-established that few
predators will enter," said Dave Witting, a fish biologist with the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who is working on the project.
On a recent series of dives, half a dozen scientists aboard the Xenarcha, a
28-foot research vessel, pulled on hooded wetsuits and descended 50 feet below
the chilly water's surface to the seafloor.
First they examined a healthy kelp forest just down the coast from the urchin
zone, taking inventory of the sea life amid the swaying green columns:
rockfish, surf perch and kelp bass, among other species. Then they motored over
to a corner of the desolate "urchin barren" and got to work, following a
2-meter-wide path and hammering away at the slow-moving creatures that clung to
the rocky reef.
It's the beginning of a project that will take years, with twice-a-week
expeditions by as many as a dozen dive boats working in a grid pattern to thin
the urchins and monitor whether the kelp takes hold.
The project also is drawing on the expertise of commercial divers based in San
Pedro, who have joined the urchin culling in hopes of establishing more viable
harvesting grounds. The invading purple urchins have gobbled up nutrients and
stunted the growth of red urchins, whose bright orange gonads -- known as uni
-- are harvested to supply restaurants and sushi bars.
Paul Petrich Jr
ppetrich39@xxxxxx
“In the end it is not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your
years.”…Anonymous
