North Coast Journal: 'Critical Juncture': A race against time to save the North Coast's bull kelp forests
At first glance, purple sea urchins might appear harmless enough, scurrying across the ocean floor in their spiky domed shells. And, under normal circumstances, that would be true. But a "perfect storm" of changing oceanic conditions over the last several years combined to set the scene for a population explosion of the creatures, which has devastated the North Coast's ecosystem.
Unfettered by their primary predator — sea stars — the purple urchins are wreaking havoc in the region's reefs, continuing to persist in record numbers with an almost otherworldly ability to survive in the most desolate of environments, even after stripping once thriving bull kelp forests to bare rock.