Urchin cull approved for Monterey reef

[TheKillerKadugan]

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.

The north coast and Mendocino did get it the worst. The rule changes, money and press have exclusively been for the benefit of the north coast. CDFW did not want to get involved in Monterey because they were dedicating their work to the north coast. But just because Mendocino is hammered doesn't mean it is the best place to do kelp restoration. Kelp restoration works best if you have some living kelp to defend and benefit by removing urchins. Where sea otters forage on the macro inverts in the kelp forest. Where lots of people are willing to go get 'em. That right now is Monterey.

A rising tide lifts all ships. Our success in Monterey will be just the latest success at Kelp Restoration and this will benefit this cause throughout California and the world. Restoration was done successfully for years in SoCal. We just chose to ignore that and act like this is something we are not sure about, when we know it really works. It just won't work in a place without divers or an air compressor, on a continuous reef without sand, restoring an annual species and where you can only dive 4 months out of the year.

 

[TheKillerKadugan]

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 . . .

The only real concern about he urchin spawning issue is to dispel the myth and we're going to great lengths to prove that negative. If people were to stop saying that it would be a lot easier for me. But I'm going to be answering this question for the rest of my adult life.

What is happening when culling is that the urchins get smashed up and the tissues are eaten by fish and snails and starfish. The other urchins don't spawn. I can tell you this with confidence because I have culled tens of thousands of urchins in the barrens and it never happens. You come back in a week and it's all cleaned up. Swimming around with bags and removing them from the system is not benefitting anything. Plus, these urchins are stuck down in these little pockets that they have created in the soft substrate so it is hard to get them out with a knife without tearing them all to pieces, so bagging them is not possible for 80% of the urchins on the site.

 

[TheKillerKadugan]

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 urchins usually spawn in March or April and they seem to be doing pretty well at it too. For the last 3 years we have seen an abundance of new born urchins in the spring. What happens in these culling efforts is that the small urchins are overlooked by the smashers (and scientists) because they hide with bits of stone or shells on their heads and their hard to spot. By culling the larger adults we make more room and food available for the small urchins to grow. That is why it takes multiple passes over years to reduce and suppress the urchin biomass sufficiently for the kelp forest to survive. Yes, culling efforts need to be large and persistent, just like the urchins. There are some other natural predators but not many or enough in Monterey. Otters help a kelp forest by praying on the invertebrates in the forest that eat the kelp, but they won't eat the urchins in this starving state.

 

[Bigbella]

That physical removal of urchins doesn't help to solve a problem, is patently absurd.

Where healthy fisheries exist, barrens do not.

The Japanese proved that, in spades, throughout the 1980s and 1990s. They had all-but overfished their waters -- though some still deny that -- that they were almost wholly dependent upon urchins from Northern California and Maine, to satisfy their appetite for uni. A number of us played a then-lucrative part -- and cleared huge swathes of them, both purple and reds. in Northern California, in the hundreds of thousands -- to the tune of about 6,400+ metric tons nationally, of fresh, frozen, and processed "roe" per year -- off to the Land of the Rising Sun.

The urchin population question was never left to a handful of dilettantes with over-priced, repurposed slag hammers, on some vanity project; they were taken largely out of the picture. In that aftermath, a few decades ago, you could count the urchins on a couple of hands, (as we did) during dives in, say, previously-polluted Saruga Bay, in Shizuoka, where urchin barrens previously existed; or in Hatakejima, in the South, where a decades-long preserve was maintained.

Visiting Japan, there was never a menu -- where it be Japanese, French, Italian food, etc -- where urchin was not offered, in some capacity. Kaisen-don, a rice bowl, heavily-laden with urchin, was very popular at the time; and around US 70.00 a shot, even a decade or more ago -- much of that urchin, still, from Northern California. The remaining Japanese native species, locally known as ezo-bafun or kita-murasaki, from Hokkaido or thereabouts, are ridiculously-expensive and highly-prized. A kilo of the "coral" runs about US 120.00.

If you don't eat the urchins -- I fully understand that they may be an acquired taste -- compost the buggers. Some purples, run through an old meat grinder -- test and all -- are currently benefitting my raging tomato plants; and I still manage to send a few kilos of "coral" to friends, around Christmas . . .

 

[wnissen]

I completed my "Kelp Restoration" specialty yesterday. There was a reasonably extensive pre-dive lecture from our fine instructor Nicholas as Bamboo Reef. At the end we knew how to navigate the grid and what data we were expected to collect. Then it was off to dive. Conditions were good overall, 1 meter swells at the biggest, with 5 meters of visibility. It definitely took some doing to get coordinated enough to hit the urchins as the gentle surge pushed us forward and backward. It's a lot easier to lay eyes on something than lay a hammer on it. Honestly, I think the required second dive is not needed. Maybe if people are struggling or damaging the reef they might need a second dive, but @TMast and I were in the hang of things pretty well after the first. On the second I took down a bag (yes, I was carrying my license) and brought up some urchins, but they were all empty of gonads, even the larger ones. What was there did not taste good. One unexpected benefit was that the sand dabs, especially, went nuts when we smashed them open. A savvy cormorant came down and hunted around us, too. The character of reef on the shale is quite different from the granite you see in other Monterey sites. Never saw a sea hare before and here we saw three, each about 30cm long. By the end of the second dive, I had put holes in 500 urchins and saw some neat behavior.

On the negative side, there was no parking at 7 a.m. so we had to park across or down the street. The closest bathroom is 400 meters away at Monterey Bay Kayaks. There's no great place to stage gear if you don't get a parking spot. I left mine on the side of the bike path, and a gentleman found my dive log, texted my cell, called my dive shop, and called the police. It's a decent walk down the beach to get to the closest point on the grid, and about a 25-minute swim out from there. Add maybe 10 minutes to get to the 0-meter mark on the far end. Much faster coming back because of the swell direction. So not a quick or easy day of diving. I am glad we were able to participate in the cull. Not something I would want to spend every dive day doing, but I'll be out again.

 

[kumimonster]

On the negative side, there was no parking at 7 a.m. so we had to park across or down the street. The closest bathroom is 400 meters away at Monterey Bay Kayaks. There's no great place to stage gear if you don't get a parking spot. I left mine on the side of the bike path, and a gentleman found my dive log, texted my cell, called my dive shop, and called the police. It's a decent walk down the beach to get to the closest point on the grid, and about a 25-minute swim out from there. Add maybe 10 minutes to get to the 0-meter mark on the far end. Much faster coming back because of the swell direction. So not a quick or easy day of diving. I am glad we were able to participate in the cull. Not something I would want to spend every dive day doing, but I'll be out again.

I thought there was a boat ride to tankers available... ?

 

[wnissen]

I thought there was a boat ride to tankers available... ?

Keith, the head of G2KR was out there on a Zodiac but they were not ferrying divers. That would have been a welcome boost! Anyone who can do that surface swim and two dives could almost certainly do three dives from a boat in the same time. But there is not a ton of money behind the operation. The grid itself is extremely well laid out, I'm sure that took a lot of diver hours to get that done. Maybe someday there will be enough resources to get a boat to take divers out. I saw one of the Aquarius kelp instructors on a scooter, he saw a torpedo ray.

 

[runsongas]

maybe can try to work out a group rate with monterey bay kayaks if there is enough demand

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Sounds like you guys had a good time. It’s a lot of work, but I think work is fun plus the added benefit of knowing you are doing something to help. Walk the talk not talk then walk.
I just got a 20 gallon Brute trash can and another large tote. I also ordered a 60 lb lift bag and I’ll get a second big green bag. I’m just waiting for the conditions to calm down enough to get out and see exactly what it takes to gather 40 gallons of purples, how many tanks, how many bags full, etc.
and how many individual urchins that averages out to be.

 

[Brett Hatch]

I completed my "Kelp Restoration" specialty yesterday. There was a reasonably extensive pre-dive lecture from our fine instructor Nicholas as Bamboo Reef. At the end we knew how to navigate the grid and what data we were expected to collect. Then it was off to dive. Conditions were good overall, 1 meter swells at the biggest, with 5 meters of visibility. It definitely took some doing to get coordinated enough to hit the urchins as the gentle surge pushed us forward and backward. It's a lot easier to lay eyes on something than lay a hammer on it. Honestly, I think the required second dive is not needed. Maybe if people are struggling or damaging the reef they might need a second dive, but @TMast and I were in the hang of things pretty well after the first. On the second I took down a bag (yes, I was carrying my license) and brought up some urchins, but they were all empty of gonads, even the larger ones. What was there did not taste good. One unexpected benefit was that the sand dabs, especially, went nuts when we smashed them open. A savvy cormorant came down and hunted around us, too. The character of reef on the shale is quite different from the granite you see in other Monterey sites. Never saw a sea hare before and here we saw three, each about 30cm long. By the end of the second dive, I had put holes in 500 urchins and saw some neat behavior.

On the negative side, there was no parking at 7 a.m. so we had to park across or down the street. The closest bathroom is 400 meters away at Monterey Bay Kayaks. There's no great place to stage gear if you don't get a parking spot. I left mine on the side of the bike path, and a gentleman found my dive log, texted my cell, called my dive shop, and called the police. It's a decent walk down the beach to get to the closest point on the grid, and about a 25-minute swim out from there. Add maybe 10 minutes to get to the 0-meter mark on the far end. Much faster coming back because of the swell direction. So not a quick or easy day of diving. I am glad we were able to participate in the cull. Not something I would want to spend every dive day doing, but I'll be out again.

Hi, I was out there doing the course this weekend with the Aquarius group. Maybe you saw me walking around, I was wearing a yellow drysuit.

We had a 2-hour PowerPoint class the night before. There was content on the project itself: logistics, goals, how to properly cull without damaging the reef or other life, etc. There was also a history of the issues at hand, and an overview of what else to look for, like invasive species. Some course work I knew already, plenty was new to me, and some of the stuff that I thought I knew was actually incorrect. So overall I found it to be pretty helpful.

Dive 1 was off-grid, near the SW buoy. Our instructor demonstrated a few culling techniques, students demonstrated & received feedback. Once each student demonstrated each technique satisfactorily, instructor gave us a "goodbye" hand signal, and we split off in buddy pairs to go get some culling done. I lost count of how many I culled on dive 1, but my buddy logged 80; my count was probably close to that. I definitely injured one strawberry anemone that was hiding underneath a purple urchin, which I should have noticed but missed (if you're reading this, I hope you're doing alright, little buddy). Lesson learned to double-check. 59 min total dive time, 35 min cull time, 32' max, 27' avg, min temp 57F.

Dive 2 was on the grid, lane E West starting at 50m marker. I logged 169 urchins, buddy logged a comparable number. Almost zero urchins from 50m until 70 or 75m marker, where there were plenty of them. For a little while, I really got into the rhythm of it, and was going through the urchins pretty quickly. Buddy had a kinda short fill, so we turned this one a little earlier (the fill was from an out-of-town shop, don't remember which one). 55 min dive time, 26 min cull time, 36' max, 30' avg, min temp 57F.

The water was warm, the vis was good at 15 to 20 feet, the swell and chop were good in the morning, manageable in the afternoon. The site is pretty far, roughly 1/4 mile out with a current trending toward shore (more current in the AM, less in the PM that day). For our class of 2 instructors and 8 students, each of the instructor used a DPV and towed 4 students out. I had doubts about this, but honestly, it worked surprisingly well. Even with us using snorkels through the chop. From the Zodiac, Keith snapped a little video showing my group descending as the second group arrived, it's on the G2KR FB page for the curious. DPV ride took about 20 minutes, from the shore closest to the parking area, so a further distance than a direct surface swim would've been.

@wnissen did your group swim out on the surface? It looked doable, just long and tiring. I think i'll bring a of kayak next time and dive off of that. There is a mooring buoy with a pretty good-size concrete block for small vessels. Also, I heard a rumor that MaryJo will be offering a taxi service for culling volunteers aboard the BeachHopper II at a steep discount vs normal dive trips. I have yet to call her about this, but my understanding is that it will be Thursday mornings. That seems like far and away the best solution for anyone who can make it.

I did use my drygloves, and was a little worried that the urchin needles would poke a hole through them. This ended up being a non-issue; yes I did handle some of the urchins with my hands, but their spines really aren't that sharp, more of a pencil than a needle. Being head-down in my drysuit for so long, it was a little stiff in the chest/shoulder area. Maybe as I get better at this, I'll be able to do it in flatter trim while being certain I don't accidentally bump the bottom with my knees/fins. But a wetsuit might be easier, and between the shallow depth and the work, I'm sure I'd stay warm enough.

If folks here would like to participate, but are hesitant to cough up the money for the class, fair enough. You can absolutely participate, and you can do it in a way that contributes to the scientific efforts as well. There is an area near the grey buoy, East of the the NE corner of the grid, for untrained divers. You just need a CA fishing license ($50 or so online), and there is a quick form to fill out to assign you an area to cull near the buoy, and a second form to record your number of urchins and/or culling time. I believe that both forms are optional, but they're quick to do and are helpful to the project.

PSA: Please do not cull in any part of Monterey/PG/Carmel besides Tanker's Reef. And please know that the East side of Tanker's Reef is being left untouched as a scientific control group. This is really, really important, because we do not want the various research and/or government bodies to get the sense that people are taking this experiment as a license to do whatever they want. This is kind of a 2-level experiment, where of course we want to figure out of this intervention improves biodiversity outcomes. But there's a social aspect as well, where we want to know if training a bunch of volunteers results in local divers generally culling in the way that's approved of and legal. If people start going rogue, or even if the pool of volunteers dries up, the experiment will likely be interpreted as a failure.