Why our Beaches Have Lost Their Kelp Fields
Why our Beaches have Lost their Kelp Fields
Just the day before last I was being shaken and tossed around on a small fishing boat as it kicked off the oncoming waves. My Uncle and I were heading to a familiar spot to drop a line of traps; to try and catch some prawns for dinner. We located the reef which was at a depth of 180 feet below our small vessel and we set about releasing one trap after the next.
Our traps were full and well populated with prawns when we returned in a couple of hours. We feasted that night with neighbours and many family members over a delectable course of prawn fettuccine and greek salad and garlic bread. But this glorious feasting and the bountiful catch were not what stuck in my mind for days afterwards.
What stayed with me after it all was the stories that were told to me by my Uncle. Both of us are saddened by the state of the Ocean these days. You can feel the lack of life struggling to survive and compete with the chemicals and phosphates and plastics we continually pump into our Oceans.
For me, the Ocean has always been a place of peace and tranquillity. The calm waves lapping up against the side of a boat or the shoreline always made me feel grounded. Like I am listening to the heartbeat of the earth itself.
But when you learn that the Ocean can also be a means of providing nutrient-dense food to your family and community and that it is home to plentiful diverse life. When you learn this it can be empowering and depressing. You might never go hungry again if you learn how to forage from the waters. Unless we manage to destroy this enormous ecosystem one single-use plastic at a time, before then.
Look not at individuals for polluting these beautiful waters. It seems to have started with the industrialization of man. Industries pump the rivers with phosphates and other inorganic materials which can kill the microscopic life and the algae and the food for other larger organisms. Industry dumps tons of trash into the rivers and waterways that all end up at the sea eventually.
This got us chatting about where all the kelp and seaweed disappeared to. Speak with any older fisherman in the area and they will describe these beaches covered in seaweed beds deeper than your gumboot.
If you follow the lifecycle of the missing kelp, you learn that its predator is the pointy sea urchin. Sea urchins love to munch on the roots of kelp, the roots are what hold the kelp in place; near the surface but attached somewhere down below.
Well, when these industrial men arrived on this coastline they slaughtered every sea otter insight, hungry for their soft dense fur. The Sea Otter among other things loves to crack open and munch on the innards of the sea urchin. It keeps the sea urchin population in check because not many other animals attempt to eat this pointy snack.
When the sea otters were almost completely gone, naturally the sea urchin population exploded. Happily, those purple pointed devils feasted on the bull kelp roots, the population exploded even more and soon the kelp was struggling to stay grounded. Huge bundles of kelp unrooted and devoured would drift out to sea and leave our beaches barren. It’s sad because this kelp and seaweed all work together to form homes and micro-ecosystems for small fish and other organisms.
Why is it that we push everything to the limit until it collapses? Is that the only way for us to find the limit and then attain moderation?
Will we SEE these issues that are starting in our present-day or will we have to witness the collapse of all the world's Oceans before making a change? I sincerely hope we make a change because I don’t imagine anything would survive the collapse of our Oceans.