Green Sea Urchin Poem

In the great big ocean, I was born so very small

Shaped like the Eiffel tower, but not so tall at all

Growing up the others, called me echinopluteus

And when I was a young thing, there were millions of us

Where I lived, whole universes were the size of just one drop

Full of unearthly beings all swimming around nonstop

Creations that seemed like things from a dream

Each life form evolved into some new extreme

A beautiful world with stunning sights to see

But it was a treacherous, dangerous world to me

All that I knew in our big ocean blue

Were the things to eat and what would eat you

There were creatures with jaws and teeth sharp as saws

They had long sticky nets and they had very sharp claws

Each day I would swim and shake off the hunch

That sooner or later I’d be somebody’s lunch

I ate what I could from currents passing by

Small plants called algae or whatever was in supply

But all of a sudden one day by surprise

I began to sink and stopped in a place I didn’t recognize

Strange things were happening to my slender form

Compressed and stretched I began to deform

Unrecognizable and with a new spikey style

I gained a shell and became an urchin juvenile

 

I learnt how to walk on hundreds of tube feet

I used burrows to hide and found kelp to eat

I put shells on my head or other things I could grab

To hide from the sea stars and large lurking crabs

My home was a kelp bed with soft dappled light

I would happily munch on it all day and all night

I grew and I grew and in no time at all

I was fifty millimeters wide and thirty tall

But with kelp beds come otters as part of the deal

Who love nothing more than a quick urchin meal

Good news I did learn about those pesky otters

A long while ago they were taken out of our waters

What good fortune I thought as I ate some more kelp

I never would have thought the kelp could need help

I was now an adult full of strength and of pride

I could eat and relax and no longer had to hide

But with no otters around the urchins did abound

And we ate so much kelp there was soon none left to be found

I then lived in a barren empty of food

With thousands of urchins in a foul mood

There was nowhere to go and nothing to do

And soon other problems appeared out of the blue

The water was warmer than I’d ever seen

And it was more acidic than it’d ever been

I feel unwell when hot water comes in on the swell

And when it’s too acidic my shell doesn’t grow well

I was hungry and hot and I even moved slow

And then it became harder and harder to grow

Us urchins did search for new kelp beds to eat

But the kelp could not grow in this new extreme heat

There were too many urchins eating what was left

We needed otters to come back so the kelp could be less stressed

Our whole world had changed and the future looked bleak

I didn’t know what to do and I became very weak

So now I say what I see and I speak for the kelp

They’re threatened and dying and they need our help

I’m only an urchin without so much as a brain

So I need more humans to join my campaign

I’ve heard that it’s people who are threatening my home

Their machines put out heat and plastic, even Styrofoam

These things make our ocean a bad place to live

And while our oceans trying there are things it can’t forgive

Nature is a constant balance and life’s a give and take

Things are getting out of hand and the environments at stake

To not protect our oceans would be a grave mistake

We need to stop polluting and allow our oceans to recuperate

Bring back the otters that you took for your fur coats

And stop driving around in your gas guzzling boats

Stop sitting around when there is work to be done

Much of the damage can already not be undone

I’m an old urchin now and I want to retire

But I cannot rest when the future is so dire

So I’ll continue to tell all that will listen to me

We need to act now to save my home in the sea

 

Coral Collaboration: Scientists and Fishermen Come Together to Save Deep Reefs

Hidden Worlds

If there’s one thing you would never expect to find hundreds or thousands of meters below the surface of the ocean, it’s a coral reef. Just 20 years ago, we knew almost nothing about deep sea coral, but with the advent of new underwater robots we are beginning to explore these mysterious worlds. What has been discovered is truly astonishing.

Like rainforests on land, these reefs are home to thousands of unique species found nowhere else on earth.

Deep sea coral live in a hostile world devoid of light and icy cold. Many are ghostly white with feathery branches, but their whimsical appearance hides a sinister secret. Unlike shallow water corals, these corals are carnivorous and consume anything that falls from the sunlit world above, dead or alive.

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Deep Sea Coral. Photo from NOAA

The Threat of Trawling

With an astounding 80% of the ocean still unexplored, we can only imagine the weird and wonderful reefs yet to be discovered. Despite this exciting possibility, there is a distressing reality.

Many deep sea reefs will be destroyed before we ever find them, if they are not already gone.

Bottom-trawling fishing boats act as unintentional reef bulldozers. Their huge, heavy nets drag along the seafloor destroying everything in their path. Fragile deep sea coral reefs, up to 40,000 years old, are ripped from the seafloor and reduced to rubble in a matter of seconds. And it’s a widespread problem. In a 2018 study, scientists found that around the globe over a million square kilometers, roughly 14% of the seafloor had already been trawled.

Graph of the frequency of trawling events and their depths around the globe. Reprinted from “Bottom Trawl fishing footprints on the world’s continental shelves”, by, Ricardo et. al., 2018, PNAS, 115(43), E10275-E10282. Copyright 2018 by the Authors.

Deep sea corals are one of the slowest growing animals, and may only grow a single millimeter a year, meaning that what can be destroyed in a day will take hundreds to thousands of years to recover, if ever.

Coral reefs in the La Fonera Canyon in the Mediterranean sea. Photo from NOAA

While scientists have been clamoring for years to increase protection of these habitats, fishing industries have been resistant, leading to stagnating progress and heightening tensions.

A Glimmer of Hope

Despite this distressing situation, a remarkable story is unfolding in the northwest U.S. New regulations, effective January 1st, close 350,000 square kilometers to trawling in order to protect deep sea coral reefs. This groundbreaking regulation is the result of unprecedented collaboration between scientists and fishermen.

Trawling began in a big way in the region in the 1980s. Within 20 years groundfish became so overfished that catch had fallen by 75%. This initiated conversations between trawlers and conservationists who have been successfully working together to rehabilitate the stocks.

The new regulation is the result of more than 30 meetings during which the groups have slowly built trust. Trawlers allowed scientists access to proprietary routes and made some tough compromises. Conservationists compromised too. Part of the new regulations re-opens an area of close to 8,000 square kilometers where trawlers can continue operating.

Lessons for the Future

Collaborations such as this between conservationists and fishermen are vital. With the huge economic importance of fishing to coastal communities, conservation efforts can’t overlook the economic and social concerns of fishermen. Only through collaboration, education and compromise can we ensure a future that benefits us all.

Resources

Amoroso, R. O., Pitcher, C. R., Rijnsdorp, A. D., McConnaughey, R. A., Parma, A. M., Suuronen, P., … & Baird, S. J. (2018). Bottom trawl fishing footprints on the world’s continental shelves. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences115(43), E10275-E10282. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1802379115

Flaccus, G. (2019, Dec 26th). West Coast Fishery Rebounds in Rare Conservation ‘Home Run’. Associated Press. Retrieved from: https://komonews.com/news/local/west-coast-fishery-rebounds-in-rare-conservation-home-run-12-26-2019

Mongabay (2019, Dec 4th). New regulations to expand protections for seafloor habitats, reopens fishing grounds off US West Coast. Retrieved from: https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/new-regulations-to-expand-protections-for-seafloor-habitats-reopen-fishing-grounds-off-us-west-coast/

NOAA (2018, July 7th). How much of the Ocean have we explored? Retrieved from https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/exploration.html

Smithsonian (2018, April). Deep-Sea Corals. Retrieved from: https://ocean.si.edu/ecosystems/coral-reefs/deep-sea-corals

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (No Date). Deep-Sea Corals. Retrieved from: https://www.whoi.edu/know-your-ocean/ocean-topics/ocean-life/coral/deep-sea-corals/