Shelby's Cove: Part V: The Solution

I know, I know, it's been a hot minute. Life happens, right?

Hello, science enthusiasts! Hello, animal lovers! Hello, conservationists! Here's your sixth stream of bubbles containing interesting information from this little corner of the California coastline. I'm Shelby, and I'm here to offer some insight on the health and function of some of the most important features of Northern California's coastal ecosystems—late, I know.

I've talked in previous posts mostly about the problems facing our kelp forest ecosystems today, and about how those problems came around. But I realize that I haven't talked much about possible solutions to these problems. What is currently being done about the transition these environments have taken from one stable state to another? Well, in an effort to stop continuing to sound like a complaining scientist who doesn't actually do anything, I'll do my best to explain exactly what the people operating in this field are doing to try and stabilize these crucial food webs. Because, despite what some people might think, efforts are being made.

It's not all bad...I swear.

Unfortunately, there's only so much that can be done about the abalone themselves. Right now, all they can do is hunker down and wait these starvation conditions out. The CDFW has closed the fishery, removing humans as a possible threat to the abalone. The fishery is expected to stay closed at least until 2021. They're in a delicate situation right now; the best that can be done right now is to leave them alone. We can't do much to help the sunflower stars either; scientists still haven't figured out what kind of disease wasting syndrome is—whether it's bacteria, or a virus, whatever—so there isn't any way for human interference or treatment. More research is needed on that front.

No flu shot for this yet.

Purple urchins, on the other hand, are the forefront of active management right now. Their natural predators are down, so they've been operating pretty much unimpeded in Sonoma and Mendocino County. Now, I don't mean to make it sound like the urchins are sinister or anything; they're just doing what any other species does when the usual pressure it experiences from predators. If there's nothing around to eat you, you're free to eat and breed on a much more successful rate (humans have been doing that since the Pleistocene epoch). So, a CDFW along with a coalition of scientists and stakeholders, known as KELPRR (Kelp Ecosystem and Landscape Partnership for Research on Resilience) have decided to take measures needed to address the issue of the purple urchin blooms. These efforts have included collaboration with commercial and recreational urchin divers.

These little spiky balls of death we actually can do something about.

One effort made to combat the purple urchin numbers is the institution of an increase in daily bag limits for urchin divers (both commercial and recreational). The original law for urchin harvest was 35 individuals per bag—a regulation that applies to general invertebrate take—but with this shift has taken place, and emergency regulations were put into place to increase the bag limit to 20 gallons. This limit was supposed to be in place from April 2018 to November 2018; I don't know if the limit is still in effect. KELPRR also organized large group efforts to remove purple urchins en masse, such as the removal events in Ocean Cove—which took place in May—and in Albion—which took place in July. These were open to both commercial and recreational divers. Since the first harvest, an estimated 200,000 purple urchins have been removed. These large scale removal events could take place again this year if the numbers haven't decreased. Removing the urchins will remove them as a source of pressure on algae, thereby allowing bull kelp spores to settle and grow on the available rock.

Image result for commercial urchin diver

People use whatever tools they have at their disposal to collect the urchins. https://www.pressdemocrat.com/lifestyle/8353809-181/north-coast-divers-take-the

A member of the KELPRR coalition, the Noyo Center for Marine Science, has been working especially closely with commercial red urchin divers. Since the red urchin fishery has also experienced collapse during these starvation periods, the Noyo Center has enlisted commercial divers who would otherwise not be working. Since they use SCUBA gear, they can stay under water longer and collect more purple urchins at a time. In 2018, these commercial divers removed an estimated 1.2 million purple urchins from the most affected areas.

Commercial urchin divers can legally use SCUBA gear to harvest urchins, so they can get a lot more done during a removal effort. Source:https://oceanleadership.org/kelp-forest-restoration-project-begins-off-southern-california-coast/

In an effort to generate lost revenue (see previous posts) and encourage an interest in a market for purple urchins, KELPRR has partnered with a Norway-based company called Urchinomics, already operating in Canada and Japan. Urchinomics has a goal of instigating a regular practice at urchin barren sites, where purple urchins are harvested, taken back to special aquaculture (marine-farming) facilities to be fed and fattened up, and then sold for their gonads at fish markets. This could remove enough urchins to allow kelp forests to recover, while also putting the urchins to use rather than simply trashing them. The only reason purple urchins have never had much of a market here is because the urchins harvested in Southern California always had little meat on them and didn't taste very good. Turns out, they didn't taste good is because all they ate was sea grass; it makes them bitter. The urchins up here eat kelp, which has more protein in it, so they're sweeter and have more umami quality. Urchinomics is hoping to set up shop in Bodega Bay, to bring more of a market to local Northern California purple urchin harvesting.

Urchinomics help turn urchins from this....(https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/sea-urchin-farming-canada-1.3930965)

...to this! Source: https://www.vikebladet.no/naeringsliv/2016/11/15/Norsk-canadisk-kr%C3%A5kebolle-samarbeid-13792905.ece

These efforts can help in the long run, but it is unfortunate they're only being instilled now, when conditions are so dire. It's brought the reality of climate change into the light for a lot of people; we can see it. Now we can only do our best as scientists.

I hope this series on the issues currently facing the abalone fishery. If you'd like to learn more about the problem, and if you'd like to know how you can help, visit NoyoCenter.org and click on “Help the Kelp”. I'm hopefully going to eventually find a way to raise money to donate to the Noyo Center, since they're one of the main nonprofits working on the KELPRR coalition and they're on the front lines of this problem. When I eventually get my collective sh*t together and figure out something, I hope I can count on you guys to help me donate to these guys.

Check these guys out, they're great! Source: https://noyocenter.org/

This has been a long and important project, but I'd like to keep continuing educating people on a citizen science level. I'm going to be holding a poll on my Facebook page about what kind of topic people would like to see me cover next. Spoilers: I'm definitely going to be doing a thread on scientific inaccuracies in kids' movies, but I haven't decided if I want to do that next or after something else.