by CASPAR BEACH, Calif. (AP) — A welded swivel strapped to her wrist, Joy Hollenback slipped on blue fins and swam into the brisk surf of the Pacific Ocean one morning to do her part to save Northern California’s kelp forests.
Hollenback swam to the surface swinging to control her breathing before freeing her into the murky depths towards the sea floor. Then she saw her target: a kelp-eating purple urchin.
Within seconds she broke 20 to smithereens. “If you’re angry, it’s a cathartic way to get it out,” Hollenback said. “It is ecologically approved.”
The Berkeley, California-based vet is part of a team of volunteers who swim, snorkel and dive armed with pickaxes and hammers on a single mission: To crush purple bays that have largely destroyed 96% of California’s iconic bull kelp forests between 2014 and 2020, thereby harming the red sea and other marine life they supported.
The pilot project off the coast of Mendocino County is one of many initiatives California is testing to save such leafy marine ecosystems, which are declining worldwide due to climate change.
Kelp forests play a central role in the health of the world’s oceans, one of the issues being discussed at the United Nations climate summit in Dubai.
Based on early observations, efforts such as culling the eels appear to be helping.
Biologists say they have begun to see small successes with the experiments that began several years ago, giving hope for reversing the destruction of a clear rainforest.
Healthy patches of kelp and schools of fish returned this summer to small areas where the beardies were bred at Caspar Cove, 160 miles (200 kilometers) north of San Francisco.
Nearby at Albion Bay, where commercial divers harvested many of the toys in 2021, biologists placed tiny lab-grown kelp on 98-foot (30-meter) lines. In August, they discovered that the kelp had not only reached the surface, but was reproducing.
“It’s the first time we know of that happening in an open coastal environment,” said Norah Eddy of The Nature Conservancy, one of several organizations involved in the experiment. “What we want is for the kelp to start producing babies. This shows that these methods can be performed in these types of harsh environments.”
Enormous challenges remain before California bull kelp is on the road to recovery. But scientists say the progress has helped ease fears that the forests will be lost forever.
“This is really setting up the system to hold on to the kelp we have until we’re in a better place,” said Kristen Elsmore, a senior scientist at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Scientists will be collecting data over the next three years to determine the most effective methods as California builds its first kelp restoration and management plan.
Kelp was so abundant that the state managed it as a single fishery, overseeing commercial and recreational harvests. Under the plan, kelp will now be managed as an ecosystem, reflecting the growing understanding of the importance of kelp.
“Kelp creates whole forests that support many other species so it has this cascading effect on the coastal ecosystem when you lose your kelp,” Elsmore said. “You’re losing an entire forest, not just one species.”
The plan could inform restoration efforts from Australia to Chile, where kelp faces similar threats.
“The main goal is for these systems to be really self-sustaining and the restoration part is really just giving it a smooth push in the right direction,” the scientist said.
Kelp is disappearing as a warming planet raises ocean temperatures.
Along the West Coast, the problem began after 2013 when a mass of warm water known as “the blob” developed off Alaska and spread south, lingering for four years and destroying marine ecosystems along the way all the way to the Baja California peninsula in Mexico.
At the same time, the sunflower sea stars were destroyed by a mysterious disease, causing their arms to collapse and turn them into gooey masses, killing 90% of the population.
The main predator of the purple wrasse is the starfish. After the disease killed more than 5 billion sea stars, the starfish population exploded, eating the kelp and leaving seascapes with almost nothing but the round, spiny ectoderms.
The loss of kelp prompted the California Fish and Game Commission to close its recreational red urchin fishery in 2018. The commercial harvest of red urchins was also hurt. Red snapper are better than purple snapper because they contain more edible uni or pis, but commercial divers say that has decreased with less kelp.
Bull kelp, an annual seaweed, begins as a microscopic spore that grows up to two feet (.6 meters) a day until it reaches up to 98 feet (30 meters) before dying in the cold months. It grows in cool, nutrient-rich waters.
The coast of California is home to giant bull and kelp, the largest seaweeds in the world. Seedlings of both species are injured, although giant kelp forests have fared better.
Some people believe that the only way to restore kelp is to cut down the purple suckers, which can lie dormant for years only to reawaken and eat new kelp growth. Chefs have started serving purple sauces to build a market.
“It’s weird sometimes, because you’re killing this animal that’s a native species, but it’s good for humans,” said Morgan Murphy-Cannella of the Reef Check Foundation, the kelp restoration coordinator involved in the kelp planting. at Albion Bay. Its volunteers monitor kelp forests from Canada to Mexico.
Josh Russo, a former angler and founder of the Watermen’s Alliance, a coalition of spearfishing clubs, helped start the vein push.
The first group was mostly local divers armed with sledgehammers, Russo said, laughing. After struggling to swing them underwater, they turned to small welding and furniture hammers and ice picks.
Volunteers have cleared 80% of the purple toads from a section at Caspar’s Cove, Russo said. It is one of two spots where California allows licensed recreational fishermen to take an unlimited amount of purple trout.
But the urchin pressure is not without controversy. Some fear it could spread sea urchin eggs, adding to the problem.
Russo saw no evidence of that. Instead, he said, the density of urchins has decreased in the 100-by-100-yard section (91 by 91 meters), where schools of young rockfish have emerged this summer among the algae. high
“This went from being short of fish to full of life again,” Russo said.
Scientists say there is no substitute for natural predators, like the sunflower sea star.
After learning how to breed it in captivity, biologists are raising a stock to reintroduce it. Four aquariums in California have sunflower sea stars, including Birch Aquarium in San Diego which spawned three in October.
At least four sunflower starfish have been spotted off the Mendocino coast this year, which Elsmore said was “very exciting” since none had been seen there in years.
There is still much to learn. Kelp did not come back in all the spots that were cleared of the reefs, and scientists don’t know why.
But the pressure is helping to buy time to find permanent solutions.
Events run from April to September and draw people from Northern California.
On a Saturday in September, volunteers included a paralegal, a factory worker, university students and a landscape contractor whose two Australian shepherds, “Swmmer” and “Breaker,” watched patiently from the beach. One artist collected the pods to make the clothing purple.
Hollenback, the vet, started participating in May 2022 after seeing the events on Facebook. She hit up to 82 urchins in the 50 seconds she can hold her breath. On this day the sea was too rough at Caspar Cove so the group headed to a nearby bay to look for a pole.
“It can be confusing to kill animals when it’s my job to save them,” she said. “But this helps save the whole ecosystem.”
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