The destruction of purple urchins

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

The article mentions but oddly underplays the cause of this urchin swarm. It's the utter devastation of Sea Star "wasting disease" that killed the vast majority of sea stars on the west coast in the last 5-6 years. Billions of sea stars have died off probably from a virus incubated by warming water. Look up the Pacific heat blob to learn more about this Pacific coast warm patch.

Sea Stars are the major predators for urchins (up your game Wolf Eels!) and with them largely missing in action the urchins are unchecked.
 
I see more loss of kelp where the coast is more exposed to the increase of and severity of storms, I see urchins and kelp together in protected coves. The water temps have also been consistently warmer and that may be a big part of the problem. I have heard that smashing them exacerbates the issue.
Purple sea urchins breed yearly around January, February and March.
 
reef check has a pilot program smashing urchins off lovers currently. the watermen's alliance / norcal underwater hunters has been working on clearing van damme SP.
 
@Dr bill
I am surprised that you did not mention the Palo Verdes Underwater Restoration Program aka PURP !
Recall when divers from all over SoCal met at Whites point for PURP?

sdm

Why should I mention it? I didn't like it. Being out here on Catalina Island where we have not totally overfished urchin predators like sheephead and lobster, purple urchins were not an issue.
 
They reproduce by broadcasting eggs and sperm, so you may help them do that by breaking them up, if developed enough.

Purple sea urchins breed yearly around January, February and March.

So is it okay to smash them outside of those months? And is there reason to believe they won't put out as least as many gametes unsmashed as if you go ahead and smash them even in those months?

Richard.
 
In order for urchin clearing to be effective, an area must be cleared COMPLETELY and not just thinned out. By just thinning out all you’re doing is removing some competition to other urchins and the remaining ones just have more to eat.
It would almost be better to not touch them and hopefully they would starve out.
There has been talk of systematically removing every urchin from marked off sections then either managing that section by active maintenance removal or by coming up with a barrier like a fence of some sort to keep migrating urchins out.
These quadrants would serve as kelp nurseries and abalone safe zones.
At this point the talk is all about trying to preserve any sort of sample so that we can buy time to figure this thing out and not lose kelp and abalone forever.

I dived Gerstle Cove recently and there is not a shred of vegetation to be found, not one abalone to be found, nothing but bare rock and very few fish. Gerstle is a preserve where nothing can be touched so nobody has been able to go in there and clear urchins. It’s a shame because it could be a perfect place to set up an underwater barrier fence just by the shape of the cove and management could be easy because of easy access and normally calm conditions.
They also need to remove all bag limits on purple urchins, which they did increase, but not enough to be really effective.

We’ve been trying to get more people to participate in urchin removal events but it’s hard to find volunteers that are willing to give up free time to do underwater work, and it is a lot of work bagging up urchins and floating them around with lift bags. Not many people dive up here but we really need the help.

From what I saw with the NCUH group was a lot of free divers (not scuba certified) that did a half ass job collecting what they could on breath hold for a while, then they also bring their spear guns and want to go play and shoot fish.
 
Why should I mention it? I didn't like it. Being out here on Catalina Island where we have not totally overfished urchin predators like sheephead and lobster, purple urchins were not an issue.

Now that's what I call the voice of reason!
 
I dive in Korea and see an awful lot of purple urchins/starfish. Is there any ongoing initiatives/programs like PURP which I could promote over here?
 
upload_2020-4-19_7-17-39-png.581432.png
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

Back
Top Bottom