Purple Urchin removal Project 2025

[Eric Sedletzky]

Good Saturday afternoon urchin divers,

This weekend doesn't look very good
6'x18's direct west swell is not good for working on the bottom with that amount of surge.
We'll look at it for next Sunday

A point I'd like to mention, If you have not purchased your CA fishing license for 2025 yet, don't buy it until the day before you know we're going out because they are valid for one year from the date of purchase, not for the calendar year. So wait till you need it and you'll get more license for the money.
Also, I want everyone to be ready and prepared as well as possible for urchin diving before we show up to the site the morning of the dive.
So if you have any questions, concerns, or anything to do with urchin diving please ask away.
The only silly question is the one not asked.

We are still going to have a Saturday afternoon free urchin diving seminar at the dive shop which I weill set a date and post.
When we get rolling this spring we will have our gear raffle give away at the dives, so if you're in need if gear make sure to show up so you have a chance to get some of it. There's some good stuff!

Thanks!
Eric

 

[Ted Judah]

Hello Purps!
I'm looking forward to productive dives at Stillwater this year. The ocean conditions have not been cooperating this winter but the fair weather will come! Linda and I will be dong some traveling - sampling the diving opportunities in Japan! So, we will not be around until late April but I will be looking forward to getting back to Stillwater. I have been thinking about team urchin collecting techniques we might use to up our productivity. Anyway, be well. I'll see you in April! -Ted

 

[summitdogg]

Hello Purps!
I'm looking forward to productive dives at Stillwater this year. The ocean conditions have not been cooperating this winter but the fair weather will come! Linda and I will be dong some traveling - sampling the diving opportunities in Japan! So, we will not be around until late April but I will be looking forward to getting back to Stillwater. I have been thinking about team urchin collecting techniques we might use to up our productivity. Anyway, be well. I'll see you in April! -Ted

Have a great trip! I look forward to hearing about your team culling strategies!!

 

[OceanGaia]

Get more people to show up!
We are technically allowed 24 people at Stillwater without a permit. We've never come close.
More dedicated participation is what we need. I understand it's peoples' time and there's no money in it, but this is volunteering and that's what volunteers do, they give their time and effort to a cause that's bigger than themselves.
We have come a long way! I can't believe how far this has come and how it's grown in just one year.
One goal is 30,000 lbs. at least and to see a sizable patch of bull kelp establish in the cove.

It's time to refine the operation more and continue to tweak it and make it better.
I need dedicated clip board people, we're going to be logging people in and out, signing people up with waiver forms, weighing bags and logging weights. We need somebody on standby who can do the oxygen in case we need it. How about a dedicated barbecue person? we should have at least something barbecued, a tasty hot meal. I would like to assign these duties to dedicated people who will show up and enjoy doing shore support.
I want to continue to get more divers in the water and get big yields. We're working on getting more green bags and PURP owned loaner gear to make it easier for people to participate.
We're also going to have free seminars on urchin collection and techniques for divers that are new to this.
I need more people with pick up trucks and the ability to haul cans of urchins to the dump site, I'll work on that.
With just a few more people saying "yes I'll be there", we can easily double what we did last year which was 21,231 lbs.

Hi Eric,

I luckily came across PURP tonight while I was researching Uni removal, actually because I found your post about CDFW regs. That took me down the rabbit hole and I’m so glad it did… you’ve created such an awesome project!! Friends of mine organize a future forum community group here in Santa Cruz to encourage volunteerism and community projects, and the last theme was Ocean health. There happened to be a bunch of divers in the discussion and we all got excited about being able to help with purple uni removal, for all the reasons you know well. I think there could be enough enthusiasm to potentially start a project like PURP locally in the Monterey Bay, or to join efforts with an existing one if we can find one, but for now our goal is to learn more about how this process works and what the needs of our local ecosystem are. We would be so excited to come and volunteer with PURP and learn from what you’re doing! Maybe sometime in the next month? I wasn’t able to find a schedule here on the Scuba board, do you have plans to dive sometime soon? Thanks for all the amazing work you’re doing!

Gaia

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Hi Eric,

I luckily came across PURP tonight while I was researching Uni removal, actually because I found your post about CDFW regs. That took me down the rabbit hole and I’m so glad it did… you’ve created such an awesome project!! Friends of mine organize a future forum community group here in Santa Cruz to encourage volunteerism and community projects, and the last theme was Ocean health. There happened to be a bunch of divers in the discussion and we all got excited about being able to help with purple uni removal, for all the reasons you know well. I think there could be enough enthusiasm to potentially start a project like PURP locally in the Monterey Bay, or to join efforts with an existing one if we can find one, but for now our goal is to learn more about how this process works and what the needs of our local ecosystem are. We would be so excited to come and volunteer with PURP and learn from what you’re doing! Maybe sometime in the next month? I wasn’t able to find a schedule here on the Scuba board, do you have plans to dive sometime soon? Thanks for all the amazing work you’re doing!

Gaia

Hi Gaia,
Unfortunately we have not been able to get out lately. The conditions have just been way too big and rough.

We'd really love for your crew to come up and participate in one if our (or several) purple urchin removal dives. They are always on Sundays unless otherwise noted. If there ever is an urchin dive on another day it will be an extra day in addition to our regularly scheduled Sunday dives.

The purple urchin regulations allow for 40 gallons of purple urchins per day per person with no possession limit in Sonoma, Mendocino, and Humboldt counties. All other counties in California remain at 35 urchins per day.
The purple urchin limit in the three afore mentioned counties does not include red or black urchins, the limit on those remains at 35.
Caspar Cove in Mendocino County is the only location that allows for unlimited culling (smashing) and unlimited take of purple urchins in California.

To start a removal campaign in any other location besides Sonoma, Mendocino, and Humboldt counties would require legislation to increase the limit up to an amount that would make sense to make the effort worthy (40 gallons like up north).
At 35 individual urchins you would get nowhere, it wouldn't even be worth getting your gear wet for that.
It would be worth contacting the scientific community in your area to begin gathering data to use in an effort to lobby the DFW to increase the take limit in your area. There were people up here that fought long and hard to achieve the limit that we have now.
If you have any video footage or stills of areas that are inundated with purple urchins and causing mass kelp destruction that would really help your cause. Most people sitting at the board are not divers and have no idea what it actually looks like underwater.
We are still battling with the MPA's that they set in place in our area. MPA's do not allow for anything to be taken snd this is counter productive to our efforts. They did not know at the time that purple urchins would become such a menace and now it is almost impossible to reverse that legislation to remove purple urchins in MPA's even in an emergency situation. The MPA's are providing a safe haven for the purple urchins to spawn and the eggs drift out only to establish somewhere else.
This problem is very frustrating to deal with when there are so many nonsensical regulations, but we're doing the best we can.

You can PM me here and give me your cell number. I have a text alert list that I send out when we are planning an upcoming dive.
I will also try and be better about posting upcoming dive info here, so subscribe to the PURP forum for updates.
Thank you!
Eric

 

[MissFire]

Hi Gaia,
Unfortunately we have not been able to get out lately. The conditions have just been way too big and rough.

We'd really love for your crew to come up and participate in one if our (or several) purple urchin removal dives. They are always on Sundays unless otherwise noted. If there ever is an urchin dive on another day it will be an extra day in addition to our regularly scheduled Sunday dives.

The purple urchin regulations allow for 40 gallons of purple urchins per day per person with no possession limit in Sonoma, Mendocino, and Humboldt counties. All other counties in California remain at 35 urchins per day.
The purple urchin limit in the three afore mentioned counties does not include red or black urchins, the limit on those remains at 35.
Caspar Cove in Mendocino County is the only location that allows for unlimited culling (smashing) and unlimited take of purple urchins in California.

To start a removal campaign in any other location besides Sonoma, Mendocino, and Humboldt counties would require legislation to increase the limit up to an amount that would make sense to make the effort worthy (40 gallons like up north).
At 35 individual urchins you would get nowhere, it wouldn't even be worth getting your gear wet for that.
It would be worth contacting the scientific community in your area to begin gathering data to use in an effort to lobby the DFW to increase the take limit in your area. There were people up here that fought long and hard to achieve the limit that we have now.
If you have any video footage or stills of areas that are inundated with purple urchins and causing mass kelp destruction that would really help your cause. Most people sitting at the board are not divers and have no idea what it actually looks like underwater.
We are still battling with the MPA's that they set in place in our area. MPA's do not allow for anything to be taken snd this is counter productive to our efforts. They did not know at the time that purple urchins would become such a menace and now it is almost impossible to reverse that legislation to remove purple urchins in MPA's even in an emergency situation. The MPA's are providing a safe haven for the purple urchins to spawn and the eggs drift out only to establish somewhere else.
This problem is very frustrating to deal with when there are so many nonsensical regulations, but we're doing the best we can.

You can PM me here and give me your cell number. I have a text alert list that I send out when we are planning an upcoming dive.
I will also try and be better about posting upcoming dive info here, so subscribe to the PURP forum for updates.
Thank you!
Eric

Hi Eric, I am also interested in learning more about the PURPs and I have a couple friends also in the Bay Area that would be interested! I heard about the group from a couple coworkers. If ok, I will send you a message to try to get on the text alerts too? Thanks, Margo