Urchin cull approved for Monterey reef

[wnissen]

My recollection is the winter goal is just keeping them back, with less specific lanes. If you can't find more specifics I'd go with that.

Just for reference, this is what I got. I guess we can do anything on the grid in A-E. Will be interesting to see what it looks like down there. During our certification it was not quite an urchin barren, but clearly loaded with them.

@TMast

 

[wnissen]

We had some trouble navigating, I'm not sure that all the buoys are there. I should have called Keith beforehand to get a current status. I think he was onsite with his dinghy and some other divers on the other side. We dropped on the grey buoy, which has a line and anchor but is not directly connected to the grid. We navigated northeast, across the grid, and did get on the grid. However, we couldn't find the markers we were expecting. We followed the line north until we saw a good number of urchins to our east, and took a heading from there. Seemed like lots of urchin cover, I smashed 400 in a 59-minute dive and my buddy did the same. Not much fish life, but a beautiful tiny red octopus graced us with its presence, and then turned white in camouflage as it swam away. We doubled back to the line, headed south, and came to a corner marked S/W, which had no line, so we just decided to come up and do our safety stop midwater. Too bad, since our instructor spotted some cool baby nudibranchs in the rope last time. We had some logistical problems with vizzes and fills so called it a day. Viz was at least 5 meters.

 

[wnissen]

There are still two spots on the BeachHopper II urchin cull on Wednesday. This $50 trip is half the normal price in order to encourage folks to cull. My hammer is still warm from this weekend, I'm looking forward to it!

Sign-in

app.timetrade.com

 

[wnissen]

Well, the call for urchinators apparently found willing divers, because we had a full set of 11 on the Beach Hopper II today! We all dropped at the orange buoy and headed off north or northeast away from the grid into unculled territory. The vertical viz was an amazing 10 m / 35 ft., about half that at depth due to occasional 2m surge. It was so nice to be carried out by Captain Mary Jo instead of making the swim. Made two dives of 49 and 52 minutes, so probably culled 800 urchins in that time. I heartily enjoyed my safety stop at the top of a giant kelp. Good luck, little algae!

 

[wnissen]

For those with an interest in kelp conservation, Reef Check's 2022 kelp monitoring classes for the general public have just been released. There are trainings along the whole west coast, Seattle, Oregon, Mendocino County, Monterey County, LA, and San Diego.

Training Schedule - Reef Check

Reef Check Kelp Forest Monitoring Training Course details: The Reef Check Kelp Forest Monitoring Training course is designed to provide participants with the skills and experience to complete the Reef […]

www.reefcheck.org

 

[wnissen]

New paper surveying hundreds of attempted kelp restoration projects. Bad news, most are small and very expensive per hectare.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/brv.12850

 

[Akimbo]

Apparently just smashing the purple little buggers is working in Southern California:

Palos Verdes urchin culling

scubaboard.com

Thanks to @MaxBottomtime for the link.

 

[Bigbella]

Apparently just smashing the purple little buggers is working in Southern California:

Palos Verdes urchin culling

scubaboard.com

Thanks to @MaxBottomtime for the link.

I'll believe that, if, in eighteen months time, there isn't a massive explosion of 25 mm -- sexually mature -- urchins, as there were from similar culling efforts, off the Sonoma Coast . . .

 

[wnissen]

I was shocked and excited to see that the Truth Aquatics Vision will be doing day trips to Tanker's Reef for urchin culls from May 6-8 2022, before its southbound liveaboard. Even better, the cost of the dive is just $35, which is a donation to G2KR! I challenge anyone to beat that for a boat dive, anywhere. Thanks to the folks who made this possible.

Register here.

There's also a meetup dive on Sunday, April 3rd at Tanker's Reef, with that great perk of direct beach access rather than walking all the way around from the street. Can't be beat except by the boat.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

My first wife and I crunched urchins at a small reef off Palos Verdes in the early 90s. We spent several dozen dives smashing them. Within a few weeks, kelp began taking hold on the once barren rocks. Thirty years later, the reef is still thriving.