For 13 years, an extraordinary army of volunteer divers from the Bay Foundation has been descending into the waters off Santa Monica armed hammers to wage an epic underwater battle against millions of “zombie urchins” that had devastated California’s magnificent kelp forests. These purple spiny sea urchins, freed from natural predation after sea otters were overhunted and sea stars collapsed from disease, had multiplied into horde-like populations of 70-80 individuals per square meter, scraping the seabed bare and preventing any kelp spores from taking hold. During grueling 9-hour underwater shifts that left their forearms exhausted from repetitive tapping, the dedicated divers have logged 15,575 hours smashing an astounding 5.8 million zombie urchins across 61 football fields worth of ocean floor. The volunteers carefully target only the smaller, empty “zombie” urchins while leaving the larger, healthier ones intact for local fishermen, creating a sustainable balance that allows the ecosystem to recover.
The results have been nothing short of miraculous, within just three months of clearing an area, dense kelp forests returned with a speed that shocked even the experienced divers who witnessed the transformation firsthand. Volunteer Mitch Johnson described the regrown forests as so dense he had “never seen anything like it,” while Sean Taylor compared swimming through the towering kelp to “flying through an unbelievably dense jungle of life” with sunlight filtering through like stained glass in an underwater cathedral. These kelp forests, which can grow up to 100 feet high at a rate of 2 feet per day, provide crucial ecosystem services by dampening storm surges and supporting hundreds of species, including the returning California spiny lobster. This remarkable conservation success story proves that sometimes the most unconventional methods can create the most extraordinary environmental miracles.
