Volunteer scuba divers wielding hammers kill sea urchins feasting on the kelp.
Keith Rootsaert, founder of the Giant Giant Kelp Restoration Project, culls a small purple urchin with a welding hammer at Tanker’s Reef, just east of Monterey’s Old Fisherman’s Wharf, in September. Giant kelp are now growing again in areas where urchin populations have been reduced.
Dan Schwartz and Keith Rootsaert prepare their tanks for an "urchin-culling" dive expedition at the Giant Giant Kelp Restoration Projects plot in Monterey Bay, Saturday, Dec. 19, 2022. Urchins are not an invasive species. The native creatures normally hide in crevices on the ocean floor and eat kelp that drifts down from the forest’s canopy. But a perfect storm of events beginning a decade ago threw the coastal marine ecosystem out of whack.
The Monterey Bay’s kelp forests used to support more than 1,000 marine species, including fish, snails, crabs and charismatic sea otters. But many of those species moved on when the urchins moved in.“It’s like a moonscape where there once was a lush forest,” said Schwartz, 59, an Oakland resident who works in electronic security.Divers cull the urchins at a 100-meter square test site called Tankers Reef. A nearby site is left untouched so that scientists can compare results.
Keith Rootsaert, founder of the Giant Giant Kelp Restoration Project, uses a welding hammer to reduce the exploding number of urchins proliferating in Monterey Bay that he says are threatening the key forests, Saturday, Dec. 19, 2022. Rootsaert’s group relies wholly on volunteer scuba divers. “Volunteers are the best answer,” Rootsaert said. “You are building an effort that will sustain itself over time because you have people acting as ocean stewards.
The volunteer divers say they’re seeing the return of dozens of species. “Señoritas, rainbow perch and blue rockfish follow us around, waiting for us to smash an urchin so they can get a free meal,” Schwartz said.
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