“Forgotten Forest”: How to smash 5.6 million urchins save California Kelp Paradise | California

oIn the dark Tuesday in July, Mitch Johnson and Sean Taylor Shimmy wore a wetsuit at the back of the R/V Xenarcha, a 28-foot boat floating on the coast of the Rancho Palos Verdes in southern Los Angeles. Behind them, a clear waters of the Pacific Ocean were spreading a forest of army green, waving like a mermaid underwater.

Here we investigate the huge Pacific kelp, which once flourished in these icy waters. But over the past two decades, warm ocean temperatures, pollution, overfishing and the spread of hungry sea urchins have engulfed kelp, causing 80% drop in southern forests to fall 80% in southern forests California coastal.

In recent years, scientists have staged a comeback, one of the world’s largest and most successful kelp restoration projects. To this end, they recruited a team of hammer-wielding divers to smash and clean up the zealous urchins. Today’s trip is an opportunity to see success just around the corner.

As can be seen from the edge of the boat, where the kelp leaves form mats on the ocean surface are so thick, strong, and strong enough to allow herons and herons to perch under the fish below. These waters have many species, ranging from bright orange Garibaldi and white sharks, who silently cruise the coastline to blue whales, which cross the deep-sea passages and head toward our east for miles.

Divers like Johnson and Taylor have all kinds of tools. Sometimes they pick up the rock hammer – like the underwater version of the Seven Dwarves – dive to open up the craziest purple sea urchin that destroys baby kelp. But today, they were armed with tape and a camera to investigate the state of this huge hidden forest.

Gear on, divers applauded Tom Ford, CEO of the Bay Foundation, a nonprofit that is dedicated to restoring Santa Monica Bay and its coastal waters, where they are sailing their boats. With the small splashes, they disappeared into the water. Ford and I were waiting, and the waves on the side of Xenarcha quietly patted to see what they found.

Led by the Bay Foundation, divers in Santa Monica Bay have spent 15,575 hours in the past 13 years. To bring the kelp back, they focus on minimizing the influence of avid diner: the purple urchin. The effort was successful, crushing 5.8 million UV light and clearing 80.7 acres (32.7 hectares, size, 61 football fields) and allowing kelp to return.

But since the results include both far and underwater, has anyone noticed it? Ford wants to know the same thing. “We call it a forgotten forest,” he said.

cathedral

The fast-growing kelp ecosystem is known as the “marine sequoia” for good reason: they store a lot of carbon, create habitats for more than 800 marine species, and blunt the powerful force. storm. Technically, they are a macroalgae that can be up to 2 feet a day, reaching 100 feet from the reef bed to the surface.

For those who are lucky enough to see kelp from the waves, it feels like a fairy tale forest, but instead of passing through it, you are flying underwater.

Ford still remembers his first jump into the forest as a scuba diver. The sunlight looked like a tongue of flame rippling through the leaves underwater, and the light passed through the small holes in the canopy. “It looks like a cathedral, shooting through stained glass,” he said. “Sometimes you’ll float in this area, full of fish of all kinds of colors. It’s like flying through an unimaginable dense forest of life.”

But for a time, these glorious environments were at risk of disappearing. When the Bay Foundation started working in these waters since 2012, the seabed looked like a purple carpet – covered golf ball-sized spike urchin.

This is a symptom of a ecosystem that has been in trouble, with multiple overlapping injuries: in the 19th century, hunters almost got eaten by sea otters that were eaten as a staple of their diet. Then, from the 1940s to the 1970s, Chemical Plant Enter the sea of ​​Palos Verdes. The landslide sediments also buried the reefs in silt to prevent any growth. Recently, local starfish ate naughty kids Waste of diseaseturn to gooey. All that remains is the urchin, which eats kelp at incredible speed and scratches the reef bed so that any kelp spores that are still circulating cannot grasp the foothold.

Ford and the Bay Foundation conducted multiple tests to determine the optimal amount of bile duct per square meter: two. Meanwhile, some barren areas have 70-80 sea urchins per meter. Since they don’t have much food, they are basically empty zombie sea urchins – hungry, empty meat, just hanging on it and preventing kelp from growing. There are a lot to do.

The Bay Foundation applied for grants from state and federal authorities and began hiring divers, gathering 75 volunteers, and even helping with commercial fishermen. Ford noted that the team did not crush the healthy sea urchins that people depend on for their livelihoods. “We are paying fishermen to go back the forest and then they can fish from there again,” he said.

This is the case with the long-time Red Sea urchin Terry Herzik, who started working with the Foundation in 2012, spending nine hours a day smashing the urchin rather than collecting them. “There’s no one there to spend more time cleaning up the urchin,” Ford said, putting on Helzick’s boat, sun spots, which were anchored nearby. “We cannot achieve this without him.”

The divers slowly and in an orderly manner ventured downwards, smashing the naughty boy week after week and clearing the plot. Johnson said hitting the urchin with a foot-long rock hammer would bring “satisfactory crunch.” He was quick to point out that it was manual labor, just underwater (wearing a clumsy scuba suit).

Divers talk about their work almost as if they were part of the construction team, which was repetitive but fulfilling, like filling potholes in the ocean. “You just click, click, and sometimes you have to reach for the gap to pull the urchin out,” Taylor said. “Your forearms get very tired.”

However, the real benefit is that the speed at which the kelp returns when they are controlled is in some cases within a few months. This is because micro single-cell kelp spores keep fluttering in the water column – just like the seeds of plants carried by wind – waiting for the right conditions to attach to the reef and start growing.

Johnson remembers a place along the coast where he worked. “In three months, the kelp is back,” he said. “I have never seen the kelp forests thickly-it’s crazy to see how fast it returns.”

My friends have a little kelp

Both Taylor and Johnson worked at the Bay Foundation, resurfaced and dragged themselves to the back of the boat. They scraped off the sea water from their hair, describing what they saw in the survey area: a small ton of fish, a small shark and a green forest.

“There are still a lot of kelp,” Johnson told Ford, but that’s not good news. “There is still a small pocket, and the urchin is swelling.” Why some areas are recovering with kelp while others return to the barren lands remains a mystery.

The ship moved to another point on the coast and the divers descended again. Here, the kelp forest is so thick that it forms a mat to hold the boat in place.

“I don’t know if we need an anchor,” Ford said. “I just let the algae hold me.”

Ford and I lifted the kelp leaves from the edge of the boat. It’s slippery, rubbery, and a little sticky. On the top, I can see a colony of small filters of water that survive on the surface of the kelp – tiny filters feeding invertebrates. Teenage shrimp and snails also gather on the leaves: evidence of their importance as a habitat for many living things. I stretched my fingers along the blades that just began to distinguish and plant the light bulb that made the structure float. Even as a parent of a fast growing child, it is hard to imagine how fast this algae moves – always upward, always upward. “Everything goes out of the kelp,” Ford said.

The project may be a model for the rest of the world where kelp struggles. In Tasmania and South Korea, efforts are being made to save kelp. California’s Santa Barbara channel is also the goal of future restoration efforts.

As the ocean spots become warmer and warmer in the future of climate change, kelp may still be in danger – but there are signs of hope. The restored site is mainly kept intact. Foundation research shows California thorn lobster has returned Fish like kelp bass and sheep are now more abundant than when the recovery work began. Kelp also improves water quality, absorbs excess nutrients, and secures sediments in place in a similar way, allowing trees to rain after rain. And these improvements benefit even the precious Red Sea urchin – at the site where kelp recovers, the Red Sea urchin gonads (precious parts, also known as Uni) weigh 168%.

While the effects of urchin have been devastating, Ford notes that kelp always faces challenges: From the powerful waves that tear the chains of the seabed to summer temperatures, these temperatures eliminate the nutrients needed. This makes the kelp super stretchy – and ready to bounce any chance. “Part of the reason is our rapid response to recovery because the system has evolved to a rapid response to beneficial conditions,” he said.

After all, kelp may have a fairytale future that can help the planet, people and coastline into the next century.