Urchin Dominated Environment

I got a call from Brandi Easter on Friday night.  She was in town and wanted to dive and shoot the s***t about the MLPA stuff.  Brandi is the Spearo rep on the Regional Stakeholder Group for the MLPA.  I was late on Saturday, (as usual) so Brandi paddled out her old Scupper pro out before me to the south side of Caspar Bay, up here in Mendocino.  By the time I got out there she had been diving for a while.

The south side of Caspar is an Urchin Closure Zone, which means that the urchin divers can't harvest there.  Brandi and I were amazed at the complete domination of the bottom habitat by urchins, no kelp, abalone, or fish...just urchins everywhere.

We then paddled over to the north side and the habitat is completely different: kelp production, HUGE numbers of abalone, and some fish.  The abalone production was unreal...there are spots out there where the abalone cover just about all the substrate.  I shot a Black and a greenling for dinner.

This is what our rocky nearshore areas that are put in reserves will look like...urchin barrens and no production.  It is unfortunate that the Russian Fur traders hunted out the North Coast sea otters in the 1850s, but without a high order predator in that niche urchins just take over.  No one is proposing the re-introduction of sea otters because it would shut down 2 fisheries, abalone and urchin, real fast.  Go to south side of Caspar Bay to see what marine reserves will look like.  Hope you like urchins.

Dave

That makes it sound like otters create balance - which I think they would.  I harvested abs alongside otters down south of SF Bay when it was open.

Interesting info - thanks for posting it.

http://www.calacademy.org/science_now/archive/wild_lives/urchin.php

So what happens when the MLPA zones become barren zones.....?  Will the greenies admit they were wrong and let us divers back in to restore the balance? I think it would be a great counter suit.

-Brian G

No way....they'd say kelp and abs are threatened in the mlpa zones and we need to close them down everywhere.

I should say that this is only about "reserves" at this point.  SMCAs that allow urchin diving will not have this problem....or if they allowed urchin diving in "reserves."  This has been a big point of contention in cabrillo point, the urchins have taken over.

Eric, the expansion of otters back through their historic range in central California, for better or worse, ended the abalone fishery there. The populations of abalone we see here on the North Coast are an artifact of the extermination of otters by the Russians.   In response to extermination, abalone abundance increased and the size of the animals as well.  In Monterey and Morro bay, abalone exist in much smaller numbers and they're super cryptic: they're wedged way back in the rocks and they rarely achieve more than 5-6 inches in size.

Dave

Dave I dove the south side "once" a couple years ago with Bluefin Joe. It was truly a "urchin desert" hardly any kelp,few fish, and only some clicker abs. Truly a day and nite difference from north to south.

Jeez did we see some fat-boy abs over on the north side.  I got my spot picked out for the Picassa Tourney

I havent dove the south side but I have the north side only once though. The place was littered with abs. Probably should take some pics for our friends and show them how well things are working out. Then again I can remember it looking like that out at the island at Van Damme 25 years ago. The notyh side if the Navarro River looks like that in spots too. Not big urchins, the little purple ones.