From urchin crushing to lab-grown kelp, efforts to save California's kelp forests show promise

After purple urchins helped nearly wipe out 96% of California's iconic underwater bull kelp forests over a six-year span, biologists say they are seeing promising signs that efforts to save them may be helping. Kelp this summer returned in small sections off the Mendocino County coast where volunteers armed with hammers crushed the urchins in the water as part of a state pilot project. In another experiment, biologists discovered kelp they had planted on lines had not only grown but reproduced. Scientists are collecting the data from the experiments for the state's first kelp restoration and management plan.