Collapse of kelp forests imperils North Coast ocean ecosystem

Bird, it honestly seems like more kelp than a normal April/spring in Monterey, PG, Pebble, Carmel, Big Sur.

Pat,  I was at Carmel State Beach on the RF opener.  Seems like the kelp is less than 10 % of the good old days.
My first yak trip here was in 2006.

Fukushima   

My personal underwater observations down here in Monterey County are that there are more of the small purple urchins (not talking about the bigger red ones that most people harvest for uni), and less kelp in some places where I usually see it, BUT definitely still some strong healthy scattered patches.

You can see all the little purple urchins in this vid from this past weekend...I pick between 5-10 urchin spines out of me after pretty much every dive trip 



I think the big storms that have made diving so hard all year have as much to do with it as anything...

Wouldn't be surprised at all to see the kelp down here being a thick annoying carpet again come July/August.

 

Sincerely,

Jim

ps...oh and have seen a ton of otters out and about so don't think that's an issue....

This stuff just brings up bad memories of debating kelp forest growth during the NC MLPA process.  "They" would bring up pictures of the kelp beds then (like 20 years ago) and now.  Of course they cherry picked the data and chose best year in 40 years to compare to now to demonstrate an extreme.  But had they chosen just a few years different, there would have been nothing to demonstrate.  Kelp has cycles like everything else.  How much of the current state of affairs is part of a natural cycle?  I have no idea ...

-Allen

Gotta save the kelp man! That is a good way for us rednecks that do not have fish finders, locate reefs!

Bird, it honestly seems like more kelp than a normal April/spring in Monterey, PG, Pebble, Carmel, Big Sur.

Pat,  I was at Carmel State Beach on the RF opener.  Seems like the kelp is less than 10 % of the good old days.
My first yak trip here was in 2006.

Not doubting your observation Mel, but how many times have you been there in March/April? Check it again in July and it will probably look like "normal" amount of kelp.

Gotta save the kelp man! That is a good way for us rednecks that do not have fish finders, locate reefs!

#kelplivesmatter

You damn right they do

haven't seen any kelp along the Sonoma Coast in the last 3 or more years. The blacks and other rockfish have declined along with it.

I blame global warming and the kelp harvesters

Trumps fault

I've eaten the little purple ones before they are pretty tasty but smaller than the bigger brownish ones.

But have recently got some big brown ones that their gonads were as small as purple ones. Must be from not enough kelp around to feed on 

I've also popped some 9-3/4 inch abs that the meat was as big as a clicker.....now that's sad and aggravating 

Wouldn't be surprised at all to see the kelp down here being a thick annoying carpet again come July/August.

 

^ This

Point arena's kelp has been wiped out pretty bad.ive never seen it that bad.i usually clip my float to the kelp but now the're far and few in between.also if you guys are not aware the census  people are out and about and they were extremely concern about the kelp wipe out on our coast.so I fear in the not so distance future there might be more restrictions coming

I only have a data set of four years to look at, but I remember the first two years I fished Shelter Cove (2012-2013), there was kelp all the way out to the whistle buoy.  Then in 2014 and 2015, it was like a moonscape: little bits of kelp here and there, but nowhere near as dense as I remembered it.  Even the inshore stuff near Abalone Point, which I recall harbored large kelp forests, was devoid of kelp these last couple years.

Juvenile rockfish like to hang in kelp forests for cover.  Could the dramatic loss of kelp forests equate to fewer juvenile rockfish surviving to adulthood?  Could we anticipate shitty rockfishing seasons in the next few years when those juveniles would've become adults?  I could see the lack of kelp taking a significant hit on the 2014-2015 rockfish cohorts (and potentially 2016, if this trend continues).

This has the potential to throw the whole food chain out of whack for a while. Bummer...


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