Sea otters remain a threatened species in California. Despite recent efforts by sea urchin harvesters to reduce protections for southern sea otters under the Endangered Species Act, the species is ...

A healthy forest of giant kelp, in Monterey Bay. (Photo by Michael Langhans) In this urchin barren in Monterey Bay, grazing by purple sea urchins has removed kelp and other algae from the rocky reef. ...

Sea urchins are prickly "hedgehogs of the sea" that exist in every ocean around the globe. You might have seen their spines peeking out of the water during low tide - or even stepped on one while ...

Kelp forests rely on the top-down pressure sea otters exert via predation on sea urchins. By controlling the sea urchin population, they help manage the grazing pressure on kelp, since sea urchins ...

“Sea otters are doing the same thing. Despite having easy access to their prey in purple sea urchin barrens, we observed they are foraging almost entirely on healthy urchins who live in kelp ...

“To see what some of those places now look like with urchin barrens is really devastating.” Another species that frequently preys on purple sea urchins: sea otters. Hatch said that restoring a ...

Sponsor Message Sea otters are large marine mammals that spend ... He says there are areas with an over-abundance of urchins — the so called "urchin barrens" where urchins have eaten all the ...

Despite recent efforts by sea urchin harvesters to reduce protections for southern sea otters under the Endangered Species Act, the species is still at risk, federal officials say. The fuzzy ...