Tag: sea urchins

Author SuzannePosted on Categories Habitats, Sonoma Coast, WildlifeTags , ,

Groups unite to replant Sonoma Coast kelp forest

Cole Hersey, NORTH BAY BOHEMIAN

This July marks the first summer planting of lab-grown bull kelp along specific sites on the Sonoma coast by the Greater Farallones Association and NOAA.

On a sunny afternoon just north of Bodega Bay, two large troughs of water bubbled in the sunlight, toward the ocean. Swirling in the eddy of bubbles were slimy forest green blades of kelp. Julieta Gomez, the Greater Farallones Association (GFA) kelp restoration specialist, explained that these were blades of lab-grown bull kelp, a tall brown algae that towers dozens of feet over rocky coastlines like a tree.

Bull kelp forests were once a common sight along beaches all across Marin and Sonoma counties. But over the last decade, they have been almost entirely wiped out from the West Coast, only surviving in small pockets between Santa Barbara and Alaska. In Marin and Sonoma, their numbers have been wiped out by nearly 90%, replaced by vast areas of urchins, called urchin barrens. One such barren reaches hundreds of miles from Marin County, all the way to the Oregon border, according to work conducted by UC Davis researchers.

Read more at: https://bohemian.com/groups-unite-to-replant-sonoma-coast-kelp-forest/

Author SuzannePosted on Categories Climate Change & Energy, Habitats, Sonoma CoastTags , , , , , , , , ,

Scientists grappling with persistent and alarming collapse of North Coast’s bull kelp forests

Mary Callahan, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Five years after marine scientists first sounded the alarm about a sudden collapse of the bull kelp forest off the Northern California coast, the state of the ocean offers little prospect of recovery any time soon.

Where lush stands of leafy kelp once swayed amid the waves, providing cover to young finfish and forage for abalones and other creatures on the ocean floor, a stark new world has materialized — one dominated by millions of voracious purple sea urchins that have stripped the ocean floor down to rock in some places. Were a tender frond of new kelp to sprout, it wouldn’t stand a chance of surviving long.

The barrens left behind are a stark and alarming contrast to what is typically one of the most thriving marine environments — seasonal kelp forests that support a rich ecosystem with life stretching from the sea floor to the surface, and up the food chain, supporting recreational and commercial fisheries and home to some of the North Coast’s most iconic wildlife, including abalone and sea otters.

The kelp forests also are a key barometer for the wider health of the world’s oceans, and without some recovery, their future as biodiverse stores for marine life and people hangs in the balance.

Laura Rogers-Bennett, a veteran biologist who works out of the UC Davis-Bodega Marine Lab, likened the kelp forest to a great floating woodlands stretching hundreds of miles along the coast.

“To lose 95% of your forest in a year and a half, that’s a catastrophe, an ecological disaster, and it’s had so much socioeconomic impacts, as well,” she said.

Read more at: https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/scientists-grappling-with-persistent-and-alarming-collapse-of-north-coasts/

Author SuzannePosted on Categories Habitats, Sonoma Coast, WildlifeTags , , , ,

Colorful sea star stricken by disease vanishes from most of the West Coast

Darryl Fears, WASHINGTON POST

Six years after it was stricken by a wasting disease off the northern California coast, the sunflower sea star – one of the most colorful starfish in the ocean – has all but vanished, and the domino effect threatens to unravel an entire marine ecosystem.

The cause of the sea star’s demise is a mystery, but it coincided with a warming event in the Pacific Ocean, possibly tied to the climate, that lasted for two years ending in 2015. It heated vast stretches of water in patches, and likely exacerbated the disease, according to a new study released Wednesday.

“I’ve never seen a decline of this magnitude of a species so important,” Drew Harvell, the lead author of the study, published in the journal Science Advances, that documented the sunflower sea star’s retreat into possible extinction off California and Oregon.

If the study had a purpose, she said, it was to call attention to the sea star’s demise so that federal officials would take action to list it as endangered and work to save it, possibly with a breeding program using sunflower stars that are surviving in parts of Washington, Alaska and Canada.

“It’s big news and cause for major management action,” Harvell said. “We felt there wasn’t enough attention.”

Read more at https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2019/02/01/colorful-sea-star-stricken-by-disease-vanishes-from-most-of-the-west-coast/

Author SuzannePosted on Categories Climate Change & Energy, Habitats, WildlifeTags , , ,

California extends ban on abalone fishing until 2021

Mary Callahan, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

California fish and game commissioners on Wednesday extended the ban on recreational abalone fishing another two years to give the ailing species more time to recover from a near-total collapse on the North Coast.

The vote continued until April 2021 an existing closure approved a year ago in the wake of a sharp, multi-year decline in the popular fishery, with no signs of a rebound, a key state official said Tuesday.

“There’s no positive news,” said Sonke Mastrup, environmental program manager for the Department of Fish and Wildlife and the lead expert on abalone matters. “We’re still seeing starving abalone this last season during the surveys. We’re still seeing fresh empty shells.”

The closure had been expected but is nonetheless a painful reminder of the uncertain future of a cherished tradition that brings friends and family together and is often passed down from one generation to the next. It could be years before abalone hunting on the level seen in recent decades along the Sonoma and Mendocino coasts, the prime destination, is allowed again, Mastrup said.

Read more at om/news/9058818-181/california-extends-ban-on-abalone?ref=related

Author SuzannePosted on Categories Sonoma CoastTags , , , ,

In bid to save abalone, Sonoma Coast divers plan huge purple urchin harvest

Mary Callahan, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

“We’re seeing swarms of purple urchins absolutely eating anything alive,” said Jon Holcomb, a commercial urchin diver from Fort Bragg who has worked closely with state the Fish and Wildlife Department and the Watermen’s Alliance on the issue. “Urchins, abalone, anything. It’s dramatic.”

Abalone hunters and other recreational divers forced to stand by idly for years as tiny purple urchins overran the ocean floor off the North Coast are scheduled to converge en masse over Memorial Day weekend to try their hand at resetting nature.

At least 100 participants are expected to gather at Ocean Cove on the Sonoma Coast for a two-day blitz aimed at clearing as many of the dollar-sized urchins from the cove as possible. They hope it will give some of the region’s ravaged bull kelp and the beleaguered red abalone that feed on it a fighting chance at recovery.

The event is one of several in the works by the Watermen’s Alliance, a coalition of spearfishing clubs claiming more than 1,000 members throughout California. The campaign, involving public and private partners, aims to try to restore the kelp forest that once dominated offshore waters in Sonoma and Mendocino counties.

Read more at http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/8330791-181/in-bid-to-save-abalone

Author SuzannePosted on Categories Sonoma Coast, Sustainable Living, WildlifeTags , , , , ,

Abalone diving banned next year to protect population on brink of collapse

Tara Duggan, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Sport abalone diving in Northern California, a tradition going back generations, will not be allowed next year in the region because biologists say the state’s population is on the brink of collapse.
Thursday’s decision came at a meeting of the California Fish and Game Commission in San Diego after a warning from scientists at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife that the population is in severe decline.The commission voted unanimously to close the fishery for one year, which has not happened since it closed the abalone fishery in the southern part of the state in 1997. The Northern California season would normally be open from April to November.
“There are multiple indications that this fishery is collapsing,” said Cynthia Catton, an environmental scientist for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. “There’s no sign that it’s even hit the bottom yet. We’re seeing continuing active mortality. We’re seeing continued starvation conditions.”
Read more at: Abalone diving banned next year to protect population on brink of collapse – San Francisco Chronicle

Author SuzannePosted on Categories Habitats, Sonoma Coast, WildlifeTags , , , ,

Fate of troubled abalone fishery in hands of California Fish and Game Commission

Mary Callahan, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
California fish and game commissioners will decide Thursday if there is to be an abalone season next year in a much-anticipated vote with far-reaching ramifications for the popular but imperiled North Coast fishery and the economy it supports.
Under a plan that has framed red abalone hunting regulations since 2005, state fish and wildlife officials have urged the commission to suspend the 2018 season in hopes of preventing further depletion of the stock.
But the commission’s five appointed members are clearly interested in a compromise that would allow divers and rock-pickers some opportunity, however limited, to participate in a beloved tradition that draws thousands of people and their families to the Sonoma and Mendocino coast each year.
“It’s an iconic fishery,” said Napa County vintner Eric Sklar, president of the state Fish and Game Commission. “There’s so many people who find real joy in abalone fishing, and we hate to shut it down. That’s a given.”
The stakes are high and the future uncertain amid an unprecedented, three-year decline in the North Coast kelp forest, which provides critical food and habitat for the succulent mollusks hunted off the California coast for generations.
What agency scientists have called “a perfect storm” of environmental factors in play over the past six years has killed off large numbers of red abalone, starving many of those that remain and drastically reducing their reproductive fitness. One of those factors is the explosion of tiny, purple urchins that have decimated kelp and other abalone food supplies.
Read more at: Fate of troubled abalone fishery in hands of California Fish and Game Commission

Author SuzannePosted on Categories Habitats, Sonoma CoastTags , , , ,

Along the North Coast, mixed news about the health of the undersea kelp forest 

Mary Callahan, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Aerial surveys conducted each year to gauge abundance in the iconic kelp forests off the North Coast showed a slight improvement last fall, offering a glimmer of hope for the recovery of the coastal marine habitat, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife has reported.
But conditions for the “bull kelp,” an annual type of seaweed — especially off Sonoma County — have become so bleak in recent years that even a reported doubling of the forest canopy during last year’s growing season has done little to bring the underwater habitat back to full strength, scientists said.
Despite patches that resemble the historic ecosystem in some ways, large swaths of ocean floor off the North Coast remain devoid of bull kelp and other fleshy algal species, prompting continued starvation among common marine herbivores like red abalone and urchins, they said.
Even with growth in the overall canopy last year, data indicates the kelp off Sonoma and Mendocino counties covered at least 95 percent less surface area in 2016 than it did in the banner year of 2008, said Cynthia Catton, an environmental scientist with the state wildlife agency.
The apparent expansion of the kelp canopy “is deceptive,” said Sonke Mastrup, environmental program manager for the agency’s invertebrate program, “because 2016 is still way below anything we would consider normal.”
Read more at: Along the North Coast, mixed news about the health of the undersea kelp forest | The Press Democrat

Author SuzannePosted on Categories Climate Change & Energy, Sonoma Coast, WildlifeTags , , , , ,

UC Davis study: North Coast water changes affecting marine life 

Mary Callahan, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Scientists at the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory say a new study shows that the response by certain aquatic animals to warming ocean temperatures may make them more vulnerable to growing acidification, a secondary effect of climate change already measurable off the Sonoma Coast.
The research showed that organisms called bryozoan changed the composition of their skeletons in warm water to ones that quickly dissolved when exposed to water of higher acidity, causing the animals to shut down, lead author Dan Swezey said. He said the study mimicked condititions expected to be widespread by the end of the century.
The findings suggest that some marine life faced with adapting to a shifting ocean environment may be in a double bind when confronted with the “one-two punch” of global warming, a university representative said, with implications for sea stars, sea urchins, coralline algae and other ecologically significant marine life that depend on mineralized skeletons containing magnesium.
UC Davis spokeswoman Kat Kerlin likened the bryozoan to a “canary in a coal mine.”
“Our results add to this growing body of evidence that ocean acidification is a threat for lots of marine animals that are producing hard shells and skeletons,” said the study’s co-author, Eric Sanford, a professor of evolution and ecology. “But that might be increasingly true if the trend of acidification is combined with this trend of warming oceans.”
Read more at: UC Davis study: North Coast water changes affecting marine life | The Press Democrat

Author SuzannePosted on Categories Sonoma Coast, WildlifeTags , , , ,

North Coast kelp beds ‘like a desert’ this year

Mary Callahan, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Abalone diver Richard Hayman already had been observing troubling shifts in underwater conditions off the North Coast when he found himself gazing around the ocean floor in Arena Cove with a new level of alarm.

“It’s like a desert out there,” he recalled, describing a barren underwater landscape stripped of vegetation by colonies of purple urchins that vastly outnumbered the mollusks he sought. It looked, he said, “like a fire went through.”

During 25 years of diving, Hayman had come to know the area offshore the Mendocino County town of Point Arena as a source of succulent abalones, abundant and plump with meat.

 In June, he came ashore with his limit of three, despite a substantial reduction in the number of shellfish he saw. But they were so withered that, once removed from their shells, the creatures weighed less than a third of what they normally would.

“They’re starving to death,” the Calistoga man said. “It’s obvious.”

Hayman, 52, was among a dozen veteran divers who recently shared their observations at the midway point to the 2016 red abalone season, which resumes Aug. 1 after a month-long break and runs through November.

What they revealed was near consensus that all is not as usual out there, off the edge of the land, beneath the waves.

Scientists had predicted as much just before the season’s April 1 start, describing an unprecedented collapse of the North Coast’s iconic bull kelp forest and the resulting gloomy outlook for the abalone fishery and the overall ecosystem.

Divers reporting in over the past few weeks — people like Napa diver Andy Treweek, 55 — witnessed as much in some areas, where they discovered a few undersized abalone living on near-barren ocean floor.

Read more at: North Coast kelp beds ‘like a desert’ this year