Hope for kelp on the Mendocino Coast: landmark restoration report shows regrowth after urchin removal

MENDOCINO COUNTY, CA, 7/8/2022 – One year after he began work removing purple urchin from Noyo Cove under a grant from the Ocean Protection Council, Fort Bragg commercial urchin diver Grant Downie was steering his boat out of the harbor when he spotted something that made him cut the engine.

“I kind of freaked out,” Downie said. He called a restoration director with the Nature Conservancy, one of many partners in a years-long effort toward this moment. “I said, ‘You wouldn’t believe what I’m looking at. I’m at the site, and I’m driving over kelp.’ I just started shouting out GPS numbers … ‘I’m right here and there’s kelp. Now I’m here, and there’s kelp. I went out there, and it’s kelp!’”