The predator we lost may return — and the kelp is betting on it

MENDOCINO CO.,, 7/10/26 — Drop a diver into Caspar Cove and the bottom looks like a parking lot — bare rock, purple sea urchins packed wall to wall, not a blade of kelp standing. What could clear it isn’t a machine or a hatchery. It’s a bruise-colored sea star the size of a manhole cover, 20 arms, a taste for urchins — the predator this coast lost, and the one a few divers are starting to find again.

Small sightings so far — a cluster off Sea Ranch, a lone star in a Mendocino tidepool. But the people who work this coast are watching them closely, because a state that has spent years and real money trying to claw back its kelp is betting the sea star can do the one thing no crew of divers can achieve: get rid of the kelp-eating urchins.