![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/An-area-of-kelp-right-that-used-to-be-covered-in-sea-urchins-left-credit-The-Bay-Foudnation-provided.jpeg\")
An area of kelp (right) that used to be covered in sea urchins (left) \u2013 credit, The Bay Foudnation, provided to the Guardian<\/p>\n An area of kelp (right) that used to be covered in sea urchins (left) \u2013 credit, The Bay Foudnation, provided to the Guardian<\/p>\n
GNN has reported<\/a> before that conservation works, almost wherever, and with whatever method it\u2019s undertaken\u2014though to be honest, hammers aren\u2019t usually involved.<\/p>\n They are, however, very much the tool of choice for the Bay Foundation<\/a>, an extraordinary, dedicated outfit that has brought about the resurrection of the Santa Monica area\u2019s kelp forests, an ecosystem described as an underwater cathedral or a grove of underwater sequoias.<\/p>\n They were decimated by the endemic purple spiny sea urchin, and for the last 13 years, an all-volunteer squad of divers have spent thousands of hours below the waves smashing them.<\/p>\n Smashing, smashing, and smashing.<\/p>\n Then smashing some more.<\/p>\n Mass extermination of non-invasive species surely is one of the strangest conservation methods you\u2019ll read about, but the explanation is an understandable one.<\/p>\n Since the early 1900s, kelp-devouring spiny sea urchins have gradually been freed from the pressures of predation. Sea otters, who also love smashing a sea urchin or two, were overhunted for their furs. Recently, populations of sea stars have collapsed due<\/a> to a wasting disease.<\/p>\n Thusly liberated, the sea urchins grew into horde-like populations that would wipe out kelp forests in a matter of days. Their spines scrape up the seabed and prevent any kelp spores\u2014single-cell reproductive organelles that anchor themselves in the seabed\u2014from taking hold and regrowing the forest.<\/p>\n The undersea barrens where the kelp used to grow has been described by the Guardian as covered in \u201czombie urchins\u201d sometimes 70-80 individuals per square meter of seabed, which linger \u201chungry, empty of their meat, just hanging on and preventing kelp from growing.\u201d<\/p>\n The Bay Foundation\u2019s divers began routinely going down for astonishing shifts of up to 9 hours. Armed with hammers, they smash the zombie urchins one by one<\/a>, leaving the larger, healthier urchins that provide a tidy profit to local fishermen, intact.<\/p>\n \u201cYou just tap, tap, and sometimes you have to reach into crevices to get the urchins out,\u201d says Sean Taylor, a volunteer diver with the foundation. \u201cYour forearms get super tired.\u201d<\/p>\n Divers told the Guardian<\/a> that the work is indeed tiring: manual labor underwater, in a wet suit and scuba gear.\u00a015,575 hours were logged in smashing urchins\u2014a mind-boggling 5.8 million of which have been smashed; clearing 61 football fields worth of seabed.<\/p>\n