Urchin cull approved for Monterey reef

[Eric Sedletzky]

I’m going to do a test next time I’m out diving.
I’m going to buy several 5 gallon buckets and just see exactly what it takes to harvest 40 gallons of crushed urchins. I will weld up some sort of tamper that I can use to crunch the urchins down in the bucket. I’m curious just how many large green game bags completely full it will take to come up with a limit. From there I can use that info as a baseline to get limits in the future just based on how many green bags that is. I know from experience that using a marker bag or lift bag works good for getting the bag around as you’re filling it, they get really heavy otherwise.
I may go to Stillwater cove on Sunday or Monday- the conditions look OK. If anyone wants to go, PM me and we’ll set it up.

 

[Bigbella]

I guess we need to be the otters for a while. Not the same but beats sitting around doing nothing.

Eric,

Here is my most commonly used tool to safely remove urchins intact — a short-bladed oyster knife, slightly-curved, made by the same company who produces Swiss Army Knives.

I simply drilled the handle to attach a lanyard . . .

I was unable to send you a PM; I was, apparently, not allowed, for some reason.

 

[TheKillerKadugan]

Hi My name is Keith Rootsaert and I am on the G2KR team.

I did not realize that this thread was playing out here until a friend mentioned it. It looks like most issues here were resolved by the community of divers. I recognize that we need to do a lot of education to get everyone up to speed on what is happening and what we are doing about it. I can gladly answer any questions posted in reply.

Couple things I noticed that seemed unresolved were 1) Incidental spawning and 2) Hammer designs

1) These urchins are generally low on gonad and won't spawn. We are in June now so whatever they were going to spawn happened ending in March. I'm very aware of the myth that started when Wheeler North was speculating about urchin culling in Southern California in the 80s and that question seemed to be the answer that spread through the diving community ever since. It has resulted in divers not culling urchins for fear that they would spawn. It is hard to prove a negative but I have put a bunch of urchins in a tank and crushed half of them and recorded a 24 hour time lapse video and the others don't spawn. I dissect and I weigh their gonads and score their average gonad health. We are considering larval collection brushes for the site. You just don't see them spawn unless they are really stressed out and they don't spontaneously cause the others to spawn as feared. I saw that someone was talking about urchins spawning when stressed when put in a bag and that is very true. As they die their last dying gasp is to spawn and they do that in the bag. That is what the urchin fisherman do, hang their catch over the rail to get more urchins. So the takeaway is don't put urchins in bags and swim around with them, do cull them with a hammer. Still, we are tracking this issue very closely.

2) Lots of people think they have a better hammer and we have tried quite a few over the years and asked experienced cullers in Santa Monica Bay how they do it, etc. Tanker's Reef is kind of unique due to the substrate being full of little holes and pockets where the urchins hunker down. The chisel and pointy ended welding hammer is just right for this job. Other projects may require different tools like rakes etc. My job is to make the best use of the time you volunteer and this spec hammer is up to the task. We also have a little tack hammer we like. You can buy your own hammer but if you forget there are a half dozen hammers at the bottom you can borrow.

Keith

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Ok so we’re back to smashing urchins, great!
Now I don’t have to figure out where to dump hundreds of lbs of urchins.
I like the ball peen hammer it works as a hammer of course but it also works as a tamper. It has just enough weight that one hit will crush them and the ball end actually works better for some reason.
When you get tired of swing it you can use it as a stump tamper. The long handle also makes it easy to reach into cracks. Like I said earlier, I wrapped mine with hockey stick tape for better grip.

 

[Bigbella]

1) These urchins are generally low on gonad and won't spawn. We are in June now so whatever they were going to spawn happened ending in March. I dissect and I weigh their gonads and score their average gonad health. As they die their last dying gasp is to spawn and they do that in the bag. That is what the urchin fisherman do, hang their catch over the rail to get more urchins. So the takeaway is don't put urchins in bags and swim around with them, do cull them with a hammer. Still, we are tracking this issue very closely.

We routinely collect urchins for laboratory use (having previously worked for bioassay labs for years and having used them extensively), easily ten months out of the year; and those urchins, which were collected last week -- several dozen, at least -- were certainly exuding sperm or eggs; nor were they experiencing their “last dying gasp”; or, when shipped to our clients, who successfully achieved fertilization under laboratory conditions.

For that matter, I rarely failed to get fertilization from urchins, regardless of the time of year — whether I injected them with KCl or even occasionally smashed them.

If there is no concern for their potential breeding, even out of season, and consequent spreading, why then any concern, at all, about swimming with bags of urchins, over culling? What's the material difference between the two? Biological material is broadcast, one way or the other.

"Still, we are tracking this issue very closely." Does this mean that the jury's still out whether culling is more effective than outright removal; or is there some concern about further spreading an already serious problem, with armies wielding ball peen hammers?

The culling efforts, so far, in Northern California, have been for scheiß . . .

 

[Ukmc]

I have followed this thread with an interest. I love seeing a difference of opinions played out on SB threads . As a disclaimer, I do not know much about urchins, other than “do not step on them”. I have never dove in California nor have I ever seen kelp forest, but I have seen pictures and videos and it is beautiful and I would love to dive it one day and, of course, would love to see it preserved just as many other ecosystems.
So I have a couple of questions.
Is culling urchins that are less than 2 year old safe without an issue of widespread fertilization?
I understand the issue of spontaneous sperm discharge when urchins are “hammered”, but wouldn’t they do it anyways as part of their life cycle?
It seems to me that culling would significantly reduce mature population of urchins and if performed as a consistent and repeated effort should result in a lot younger population which when culled is too young to reproduce.
I hope this culling effort does not backfire, as some other ill-fated attempts of humans trying to change an ecosystem but having unintended consequences.
It seems to me that culling should work but would take some time and more importantly consistent effort.
Is my logic flawed because of my complete ignorance on the subject?
I know, it is not as much fun as hammering, but has any organizations tried to reintroduce a population of species that prey on urchin back into ecosystem? It seems like more sustainable solution. Somebody mentioned in this thread that otters naturally prey on urchins. I can envision some happy fat otters having a smorgasbord of food anywhere they look. Are there any other natural predators for them?

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I have followed this thread with an interest. I love seeing a difference of opinions played out on SB threads . As a disclaimer, I do not know much about urchins, other than “do not step on them”. I have never dove in California nor have I ever seen kelp forest, but I have seen pictures and videos and it is beautiful and I would love to dive it one day and, of course, would love to see it preserved just as many other ecosystems.
So I have a couple of questions.
Is culling urchins that are less than 2 year old safe without an issue of widespread fertilization?
I understand the issue of spontaneous sperm discharge when urchins are “hammered”, but wouldn’t they do it anyways as part of their life cycle?
It seems to me that culling would significantly reduce mature population of urchins and if performed as a consistent and repeated effort should result in a lot younger population which when culled is too young to reproduce.
I hope this culling effort does not backfire, as some other ill-fated attempts of humans trying to change an ecosystem but having unintended consequences.
It seems to me that culling should work but would take some time and more importantly consistent effort.
Is my logic flawed because of my complete ignorance on the subject?
I know, it is not as much fun as hammering, but has any organizations tried to reintroduce a population of species that prey on urchin back into ecosystem? It seems like more sustainable solution. Somebody mentioned in this thread that otters naturally prey on urchins. I can envision some happy fat otters having a smorgasbord of food anywhere they look. Are there any other natural predators for them?

The otters that once inhabited the North Coast (north of the GG Bridge) were larger and a more robust species than those found south of SF peninsula. The Russian fur trade back in the 19th century decimated the population and they are now extinct. They have tried to reintroduce southern otters up here but it has never worked and they gave up. The giant pacific sea star (voracious urchin predator) died off several years ago because of a very toxic algae bloom and has not made a recovery yet. Other stars are starting to make a recovery as I have seen some very big regular five armed stars around. I’m also seeing some very large rock crabs around and they crush and eat urchins. We do not have sheeps head fish up here like they do in Southern California. Wolf eels also eat urchins but where I have nbeen diving I do not see them because it’s not deep enough. A lot of my diving is almost up on the beach in the intertidal zone and down to twenty feet where the biggest infestation is.
I don’t know what the predator for otters would have been other that sharks and orcas. The weather and sea conditions and lack of calm places to hide from stormed seems to be the main factor with the lack of success in relocating southern otters up here.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

The culling efforts, so far, in Northern California, have been for scheiß . . .
[/I]

Part of the reason culling efforts have not been that successful is because of the lack of diver participation. I see too many pissing contests about just what is the “best” solution, and not enough diving.
Doing nothing is the worst solution in my opinion.
It seems that Monterey has been getting most of the press. Have those officials even peeked at how bad it is up in Sonoma County? I doubt it because all the attention always get focused on precious Monterey. Monterey has a lot more divers, so many people go there and a lot are from the Bay Area. Even though it’s ten times worse up here it’s out of sight and out of mind for most people because they never come up here to see it.
All I ever hear is “I don’t want to go up there because the diving is not as nice, it’s too rough, and it’s too far north”. Well, until you can dedicate yourselves to a cause and forget about some pleasure diving outing riding your scooters around Point Lobos and then signing up for a three hundred dollar money grab on top of it!
It seems very elitist to me, everybody is an expert and it sounds like they are now joining the exclusive three hundred dollar club knowing that it is exclusive. The rest of us are just “helpers”?
Typical red tape.

 

[lowwall]

@Eric Sedletzky

I'm inspired. I'd be right there if it wasn't for that pesky 4000 mile round trip. Maybe some of the closer Scubaboarders will heed the call.

Also, if anyone is qualified to swing a hammer, it's you.

 

[Bigbella]

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