In order for urchin clearing to be effective, an area must be cleared COMPLETELY and not just thinned out. By just thinning out all you’re doing is removing some competition to other urchins and the remaining ones just have more to eat.
It would almost be better to not touch them and hopefully they would starve out.
There has been talk of systematically removing every urchin from marked off sections then either managing that section by active maintenance removal or by coming up with a barrier like a fence of some sort to keep migrating urchins out.
These quadrants would serve as kelp nurseries and abalone safe zones.
At this point the talk is all about trying to preserve any sort of sample so that we can buy time to figure this thing out and not lose kelp and abalone forever.
I dived Gerstle Cove recently and there is not a shred of vegetation to be found, not one abalone to be found, nothing but bare rock and very few fish. Gerstle is a preserve where nothing can be touched so nobody has been able to go in there and clear urchins. It’s a shame because it could be a perfect place to set up an underwater barrier fence just by the shape of the cove and management could be easy because of easy access and normally calm conditions.
They also need to remove all bag limits on purple urchins, which they did increase, but not enough to be really effective.
We’ve been trying to get more people to participate in urchin removal events but it’s hard to find volunteers that are willing to give up free time to do underwater work, and it is a lot of work bagging up urchins and floating them around with lift bags. Not many people dive up here but we really need the help.
From what I saw with the NCUH group was a lot of free divers (not scuba certified) that did a half ass job collecting what they could on breath hold for a while, then they also bring their spear guns and want to go play and shoot fish.
