Treehugger: Eat sea urchins to save the oceans
These spiny little animals are in desperate need of population control, and our sushi habits could help.
'Eat more seafood to save the oceans' is not a message we hear much these days, but when it comes to one particular species, it might just work. Sea urchins are notoriously hungry creatures that ravage kelp forests when their natural predators disappear, due to overfishing, warming waters, pollution, or a tsunami. Once the kelp forests have been consumed, the urchins starve but remain alive in stasis for years, their shells empty and unappealing to predators, but still preventing the kelp's regeneration. The resulting 'urchin barrens' are essentially underwater deserts, where nothing grows and no other fish species can live.
Enter an innovative company called Urchinomics. It collects these empty yet living urchins and relocates them to a land-based 'ranch', where they're fed a specially formulated feed made from Japanese kombu (also kelp, taken from places with an overabundance or sustainably farmed). The feed is 100 percent natural and plant-based, with no corn, soy, antibiotics, growth hormones, or fishmeal added. The urchins fatten up in 4-10 weeks, depending on conditions, and are then harvested for human consumption. Even more impressive is how little feed it takes to grow urchins – a mere 0.4 kg to produce 1 kg of roe. Compare that to the 28 kg of feed required to produce 1 kg of farmed bluefin tuna, or 6 kg for beef.