Divers crush purple urchins in fight to save California’s kelp forests

Divers fight to save California's kelp forests threatened by warming ocean watersThe Nature Conservancy, Birch Aquarium

Transcript

00:00 (water splashing)

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00:47 - So I'll take the purple spines, I'll boil these,

00:51 clean off the spines,

00:52 'cause we want the kelp to recover in this area

00:55 because the purple urchins are eating the kelp

00:58 and there are so many of them.

01:01 - You know, sometimes it does feel weird

01:03 like you're killing this animal that's a native species,

01:06 but it's for the greater good.

01:08 - You used to look out on this coast

01:12 and see was just this incredibly dense,

01:14 beautiful kelp that hosted, you know,

01:18 up to a thousand different species.

01:20 And now when you swim under the water here,

01:22 what you're seeing is like basically a big parking lot

01:25 and it's just covered in urchins as far as the eye can see.

01:28 (silence)

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