Urchin cull approved for Monterey reef

[MichaelMc]

Have they tried it in the swimming pool first?

They have pictures of them using hammers in a pool with rocks, kelp, urchins, and transect tape.... It looks almost like the ocean.

 

[Centrals]

They seem to have a focus on conveying to fish and game that it is a precision intervention, not a crushing machine stomping across the seabed. Though perhaps different tools work well in different circumstances.

Also, the minimum skill set is OW divers with some cold water experience. So we are not talking masters of surge and cold water diving.

Precision intervention? It is no more than plain human intervention.
I hope they will check each diver buoyancy control before letting them to pick up a urchin from the sea bed and then crush it with an hammer!

Urchin spine is very brittle and difficult to remove. Very good chance of infection if not treated properly. Very painful as well(speaking from experience).

 

[Centrals]

They have pictures of them using hammers in a pool with rocks, kelp, urchins, and transect tape.... It looks almost like the ocean.

I meant for how long?

 

[MichaelMc]

We will have answers in a few weeks. You can come over this way and take the class with us all.

 

[Centrals]

We will have answers in a few weeks. You can come over this way and take the class with us all.

Thank you for the invitation.
Flying half way round the world to smash some sea urchins? NO thank you.

Have fun but be careful.

 

[Jcp2]

A welding hammer, really?
Do you want to just poke holes in them and have to push each one off when it gets stuck on the pick end of the hammer?
Or do you want to smash them?
I was thinking more of a tamping rod with a little weight to it so you could use both hands and let the weight of the tool do the work. The end would have a thick flat round plate welded on about 2.5” - 3” in diameter. Swinging a hammer gets tiring after a few minutes especially under water.
I’m going to design and make something better.

Modified pistol grip, surgical tubing powered, long shaft?

 

[Akimbo]

Plus, it will likely be a benefit to the environment if their body parts decompose in situ.

All the soft tissue in every urchin I have broken open was eaten in seconds by a swarm of fish. Smashing urchins was a common trick for underwater photographers to attract their subjects. The food chain in the shallow oceans is rarely patient enough for decomp at the cellular level.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

They seem to have a focus on conveying to fish and game that it is a precision intervention, not a crushing machine stomping across the seabed. Though perhaps different tools work well in different circumstances.

Also, the minimum skill set prior to the class is OW divers with comfort in local waters. So we are not talking masters of surge and cold water diving.

I have smashed literally thousands of urchins and collected thousands more. I’m not a novice at this.
I’m going to come up with a special tool just for urchin culling, you’ll see.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

They have pictures of them using hammers in a pool with rocks, kelp, urchins, and transect tape.... It looks almost like the ocean.

Call the pool repair guy!

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Thank you for the invitation.
Flying half way round the world to smash some sea urchins? NO thank you.

Have fun but be careful.

There’s more to it than that. What about all the great wine, food, sights to see, etc.
Thousands of people from your neck of the woods come here as tourists (SF Bay Area) every year for a reason.
But the bonus for you would be that you would get to smash urchins too!