A community effort to restore kelp forests in the Santa Barbara Channel is kicking off this spring.
Decades ago, a marine heatwave wiped out vibrant kelp forests near San Miguel Island. While ocean temperatures have returned to normal, the kelp has not grown back. The reason? Purple urchins.
Now, Commercial Fishermen of Santa Barbara are teaming up with UC Santa Barbara researchers to remove them. Jenn Caselle is a research professor with UCSB’s Marine Science Institute.
“Purple urchins are keeping the state in, what we call, an urchin-barren state and not allowing the kelp to regrow,” Caselle said. “We hope that by removing those herbivores—not completely—but down to a more natural density, that the system will go back into a balance and kelp will be able to regrow.”
Fishermen will harvest the urchins and sell them to local restaurants as seafood, or they may be turned into agricultural products such as fertilizer.
According to Caselle, kelp forests are crucial to marine biodiversity because many fish and aquatic animals depend on them for food and shelter.
