June 9th urchin dive report

[Eric Sedletzky]

Was there some reason for the small crowd you had working this time? It seems like every time in the past you've mentioned having 3-4 times as many divers if not more. Your team isn't losing interest, are they? I'd hate to see this project lag just as you are seeing such good progress!

The conditions forecasts I post on the text alerts is probably scaring a lot of people, plus it was graduation weekend and a lot of divers had kids graduating from high school, so there was that. I dunno, sometimes people just don’t show up and other times we get a good turnout? I never know. Maybe people are inherently lazy or maybe they would rather spend one of their two days off doing something else more funner, IDK?
And then there the equipment requirement to do it, maybe they don’t have the money and are too broke to step up? But then we’re only talking about a few hundred dollars to get set up. I’ve tried to make it as easy and convenient as possible with logistics so all they have to do is show up and work. but maybe it’s not enough, IDK?
Maybe it’s too much work?
I know that I will continue my efforts no matter what. I have since given up “fun dives” in favor of doing these work dives, but I’m having a lot of fun, so…
I have a feeling you’d be a regular at these if you were a local.

 

[john collins]

We do have a pretty solid core of divers, so encouraging to see results. I'm jazzed myself. This kind of diving isn't for everyone, it's cold, surgy on a good day, 10' vis is decent, we are positively boutant, and the exit with a 7mm and 30lb of lead bringing a 70 pound bag of urchins is challenging, but that's what needs to be done to bring back the beauty and diversity of a kelp forest

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

We do have a pretty solid core of divers, so encouraging to see results. I'm jazzed myself. This kind of diving isn't for everyone, it's cold, surgy on a good day, 10' vis is decent, we are positively boutant, and the exit with a 7mm and 30lb of lead bringing a 70 pound bag of urchins is challenging, but that's what needs to be done to bring back the beauty and diversity of a kelp forest

Like we were talking the other day when we were out there, a lot of them are one and done.
They just wanted to try it, they tried it and then decided for whatever reason it’s not for them.
Even if they just got a bag, one small bag, those are urchins that are no longer out there eating everything alive.
I’m just happy for anything I can get.

 

[Green Frog]

Is there any plan for long term urchin abatement! It seems they reproduce so quickly and they lack natural enemies, so what’s the long term hope to control their numbers where they’re not wanted?

Maybe if some economic value were found for them, such as making uni the “next big thing” at expensive restaurants. Getting a lot of folks to go after them for an extended time seems to be the only option currently available.

As I’ve read and thought about this, it seems whenever you, Eric, and your devoted team of urchin harvesters take a break, the purple invaders will come right back in. Is there a predator that might help control them?

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Is there any plan for long term urchin abatement! It seems they reproduce so quickly and they lack natural enemies, so what’s the long term hope to control their numbers where they’re not wanted?

Maybe if some economic value were found for them, such as making uni the “next big thing” at expensive restaurants. Getting a lot of folks to go after them for an extended time seems to be the only option currently available.

As I’ve read and thought about this, it seems whenever you, Eric, and your devoted team of urchin harvesters take a break, the purple invaders will come right back in. Is there a predator that might help control them?

The state has employed all the commercial urchin harvesters to collect purples, and right now they go to a composting facility. The commercials get paid to collect by the day, but every one of them that I know is very motivated and puts in a lot of effort. The red market urchin industry has collapsed due to the purps so they have a vested interest in seeing the purps gone. Plus all of them were avid abalone divers and they closed abalone indefinitely until the kelp comes back and populations return to healthy levels (which is slowly happening BTW).
There are some organizations collecting and feeding purple urchins in captivity to fatten them up then selling them to restaurants. I see them on Instagram. I don’t know what’s involved with permits in that regard. Purple’s are actually some of the tastiest urchins, it’s just that they’re small and the uni is not big. But flavor wise they are delicious.
The thing is, this isn’t like the lionfish problem because these aren’t invasive, they are native. They are just out of balance right now, but they don’t want them completely eliminated. There’s a lot of layers of science and study involved.
The best we can hope for is for now just to clear areas to create safe havens for kelps to grow and survive. Kind of like a seed farm. There is no way we could attempt to rid the entire coastline of purples, we must pick our battles and stick to one area or cove then keep it clean.
Once we clear an area it actually takes a while for new ones to comeback. We’ve noticed that once an area gets cleared it takes weeks or longer for new urchins to begin to migrate where we cleared. So as long as we keep up the pressure and plan a dive every couple weeks we can make headway.
This is why I’m trying like hell to recruit more divers to help. If we got just 12 out of the over 70+ that I have signed up we could get so much done.
So to say out of all the people on the text alert list, to only see a handful show up is a little frustrating indeed.
But like John said, we do have a core group that is dedicated to this cause.

 

[Green Frog]

My question was meant, not to be discouraging, but to garner information, Eric. I’m still trying to wrap my head around how they got so out of control. Did they formerly have one or more predators, now gone? Was there a change in the overall food chain? Is it the dreaded Global Warmin, or??? If they are native to the area, why have they gotten so out of control in such a relatively short time?

 

[Still Kicking]

My question was meant, not to be discouraging, but to garner information, Eric. I’m still trying to wrap my head around how they got so out of control. Did they formerly have one or more predators, now gone? Was there a change in the overall food chain? Is it the dreaded Global Warmin, or??? If they are native to the area, why have they gotten so out of control in such a relatively short time?

Here's a brief explanation of the situation:

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

My question was meant, not to be discouraging, but to garner information, Eric. I’m still trying to wrap my head around how they got so out of control. Did they formerly have one or more predators, now gone? Was there a change in the overall food chain? Is it the dreaded Global Warmin, or??? If they are native to the area, why have they gotten so out of control in such a relatively short time?

It was a chain of events that caused the catastrophe. In 2013 there was a strange toxic bloom that killed off all the giant sun stars and other sea stars that are the natural predator to purple urchins. The following year there was a warm water blob that sat offshore and killed off most of the kelp. Bull kelp hates warm water.
Then the purps had no natural enemies so they proliferated. In a short span of only a couple years they were already out of control. The kelp could have come back because the warm water blob ended but the purple urchins eat everything, the holdfasts, and kelp can’t get started. That caused the abalone to starve because their main food source is/was bull kelp. All the abs ended up hovering in close the beaches to eat other things like sea lettuces and weeds. When the storms would come and a lot of abs would end up getting washed up on beaches then get eaten by predators. Then there was also a mass die off of abalone due to another toxic algae bloom, so they finally shut down abalone indefinitely which caused a whole chain reaction with dive shops going out of business and a severe decrease in abalone tourism. People came here from around the world to abalone dive. There was a whole industry that shut down because of no abalone.
So now pretty much all you see are purple urchin barrens and little else.
So it was a major collapse on many fronts.
However, I’ve seen footage of giant sun stars coming back in the wild, so that is great news. They are also raising GSS in captivity then releasing them to try and get them back doing their jobs.
So what we’re doing is really critical work.
I just wish the state and the feds would take this a little more seriously. I’m not seeing the sense of urgency that this really requires.
This problem is severely under reported.

Just to give you an idea, if I was able to quit my day job and was independently wealthy enough to move out there and dive every single day that was divable to do nothing but remove purple urchins for the rest of my life I would be out there in the blink of an eye.
That’s how passionate I am about this.