Urchins and Baykeeper Rescue at Sea

[brianmeux]

Divers,

We are trying tofight back the urchins who are trying to make their way back into our restoration site at Long Point. We need your help! I am proud to announce we moved over 5,000 urchins over last weekend! Huge thanks to:

Ian Craig

Heather Wilson

Laurel Fink

Oren Skoog

Bertrand Tremolet de Villers (diving both days!!)

These divers worked hard and even put in extra time to help rescue a poor guy whose jet ski broke down a few miles away from any shore in the middle of Santa Monica Bay. It was at the end of the day, his jet skiing buddy had already returned to shore, very few boats were left on the water, and he had no phone or radio. The guy was literally stranded with no means of communication. Because our divers were willing to do the third dive in choppy waters, we were coming back a bit late. We were able to get him help and Baywatch towed him in. He was extremely grateful. Our crew did amazing, he may have had to spend the night out there.

Please contact me if you can dive.

Thank you to our volunteer work crew!

Brian

 

[mocrumbo]

YEAH!
We have a LOT of work to do!

YouTube - ascent at Long Point

 

[mocrumbo]

We are doing a LOT of restoration work at Long Point now- this is truly where we need to concentrate our efforts.
YouTube - 4200 urchins going up!

 

[drbill]

Brian,

Why is it that the urchins maintain their populations at levels high enough to impact your restored kelp project? Are the new plants small and therefore very sensitive to urchin grazing? Are there few predators (sheephead, lobster) to keep the urchins in check? We are fortunate here on Catalina to have few if any urchin barrens because ecological factors tend to keep our urchins in check.

 

[mocrumbo]

Hi Dr. Bill,
You are right, we need to make these areas MPAs so that the urchin predators do not get over hunted/ over fished. We spent the latter part of 2007 doing massive CRANE data collection to strengthen our argument! Brian can tell you more, I am just a volunteer/ Baykeeper junkie.

Here is a sad video that I took at Point Vicente.

YouTube - Point Vincente, more pre-restoration


See you at the Scuba Show?
heather

 

[brianmeux]

Brian,

Why is it that the urchins maintain their populations at levels high enough to impact your restored kelp project? Are the new plants small and therefore very sensitive to urchin grazing? Are there few predators (sheephead, lobster) to keep the urchins in check? We are fortunate here on Catalina to have few if any urchin barrens because ecological factors tend to keep our urchins in check.

Hi Dr. Bill,
Sorry for the late reply, things are nuts these days.
A year ago we pulled the urchins out of our restoration site (~1 acre). the problem is the site was and currently is surrounded by many urchins. There were urchin barrens to the East and West of our site when we began. As the urchins are removed, new kelp and reef habitat must attract the urchins because we notice a slow urchin migration into our site. So we have been defending the borders, but have decided to attack the adjacent barrens. This way they cannot migrate in, and more area will be restored. So it's ambitious, yet very doable. All we need is divers to help us out!

Does that answer your question?
Brian

 

[brianmeux]

Hi Dr. Bill,
You are right, we need to make these areas MPAs so that the urchin predators do not get over hunted/ over fished. We spent the latter part of 2007 doing massive CRANE data collection to strengthen our argument! Brian can tell you more, I am just a volunteer/ Baykeeper junkie.

Here is a sad video that I took at Point Vicente.

YouTube - Point Vincente, more pre-restoration


See you at the Scuba Show?
heather

Heather, you are totally correct, MPAs are one tool that will help with this current lack of urchin predators. They also will help restore degraded food web interactions by protecting habitats. We also need sustainable fishery management of sheephead and lobster in addition to well-designed MPAs. Also, don't forget the sea otter!

The data we've been gathering is objective, but it will be useful for the MLPA process in guiding where protection is needed, and will also serve as a baseline so we may know if the MPAs are effective. Of course, it may take a couple decades in cases like rockfish species, which are slow growing.

Hey, nice pic of you and the urchins!! Great Video too!!
Brian