The Inertia: Urchinomics: Restoring Kelp Forests Through Responsible Urchin Ranching
Open any given sea urchin from the droves of them along California’s coastline these days and you’ll find almost nothing at all. What’s usually inside is their “roe” — the star-shaped pattern of five “tongues” or strips of rich, delectable custard-like protein — really gonads or corals, and in fact the sex organs that produce the roe, are scant to be found.
That’s because some 95 percent of California’s kelp forests have disappeared within the last seven years, The New York Times reports, and in their place lies a vast carpet of what are being dubbed “urchin barrens”: fields of virtually empty sea urchins existing in a zombie-like state of suspended starvation, in which they can remain for decades while plucking whatever kelp spores do drift past.