RESTORING OUR UNDERWATER FORESTS

In July 2021 I spent a mostly foggy eight weeks down in Charleston, Oregon, a small town on the southern Oregon coast right past Coos Bay and about a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Eugene. The town has a main street that runs through fi ve blocks. Davy Jones Locker, a small convenience store, is on one end of the street and the Coast Guard station is at the end of the road overlooking the marina and the bay. Its population is 795.

Right before the Coast Guard station sits the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology, the place where I’d spend most of my summer dissecting various sea creatures. I took two courses at the OIMB. We spent most of our days taking fi eld trips to neighboring towns or fi sheries. On one of the last days of class, we drove 50 miles south to Port Orford. Once we got to Port Orford we were introduced to Tom Calvanese, the Oregon State University Field Station manager, who served as our tour guide for the day. Symmetrical bird tattoos wrap each side of his neck, and his tanned skin was impressive for the usually cloudy weather that characterizes the coast. Calvanese explained that Nellie’s Cove near Port Orford used to be a boat launching location for the local Coast Guard. Now it’s the location where he and a group of scientists research kelp forests. He showed us a sideby-side comparison of the cove in both 2017 and 2021. Th e diff erence was staggering — the kelp had almost all but vanished. Within the last half-decade, Within the last half-decade, swaths of kelp forests all along swaths of kelp forests all along the Pacifi c Coast have been disappearing. A study done by disappearing. A study done by Laura Rogers-Bennet, a marine scientist for the University of California Davis and California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife, indicated that more than 90% of Northern California’s kelp was wiped out between 2014 and 2016 because of a marine heatwave. because of a marine heatwave. Oregon’s kelp forests quickly followed suit in the diequickly followed suit in the dieoff . Oregon community members and passionate scientists began to notice the shift and are now looking to solve the issue. Th e kelp decline was especially apparent in Port Orford and Nellies Cove, and it wasn’t only marine biologists in the area who were noticing these shifts in the ocean — it was local fi shermen, tour guides and restaurant owners. Th e decline in kelp had rippling eff ects across the region, and locals like Calvanese wanted to do something about it. Th e consolidated concern turned into the founding of the Oregon Kelp Alliance, or ORKA. Th e alliance brings community members together to bring awareness to the rapid decline of the kelp forests –– and to hopefully fi nd solutions to the pressing issue. With only a population of about 1,000, many have livelihoods connected to the ocean and its wellbeing. According to a 2017 Port Orford report, “95% of Port Orford’s non-tax revenue has come from the commercial fi shing industry.” Dave Lacey, the owner of South Coast Dave Lacey, the owner of South Coast Tours, is a member of ORKA. He said Tours, is a member of ORKA. He said he feels passionately about the decline of he feels passionately about the decline of kelp forests in the area. I met Lacey as my kelp forests in the area. I met Lacey as my class and I were walking back up to the fi eld class and I were walking back up to the fi eld station from the port. He was busy cleaning station from the port. He was busy cleaning his rig, but he stopped momentarily to give a his rig, but he stopped momentarily to give a warm hello as Calvense introduced us. warm hello as Calvense introduced us. South Cove Tours off ers not only boat South Cove Tours off ers not only boat and kayak tours, but also snorkeling outings and kayak tours, but also snorkeling outings around the Port Orford area. Lacey said he’s around the Port Orford area. Lacey said he’s noticed less kelp during his outings, and he tells noticed less kelp during his outings, and he tells his clientele about the drastic decline in kelp his clientele about the drastic decline in kelp during his tours. He drives his boat in areas that, during his tours. He drives his boat in areas that, just a few years ago, he would’ve never ventured just a few years ago, he would’ve never ventured into from fear that bull kelp would get tangled into from fear that bull kelp would get tangled in the engine. in the engine. “One thing that sticks out to me is just “One thing that sticks out to me is just how fast this happened,” Lacey said. “ It was how fast this happened,” Lacey said. “ It was just a matter of three or four years to see a just a matter of three or four years to see a major, major decline.” major, major decline.” In some areas around the In some areas around the marine reserve, there are still healthy marine reserve, there are still healthy patches of kelp. Between the cove and the reserve Lacey said he can “show them what it looks like now and what it used to look like all in one trip.”

So why is the kelp disappearing? Th e answer might largely be connected to sea star wasting disease, which is one of Sarah Gravem’s research focuses. Gravem is a postdoctoral researcher at OSU who is studying marine ecology, specifi cally how predators aff ect prey populations and behavior, and how these interactions aff ect an ecosystem. She is

also a member of ORKA. Gravem said there is not a lot known about the disease except that it started in 2013 in Washington and California and then spread outward, hitting Oregon in 2014. Symptoms of the disease include white lesions, twisted arms and deflation and disintegration of the body. Sea stars that are infected die within weeks, sometimes days. Sunflower stars, a species of sea star that can weigh more than 10 pounds and can move a meter per minute, have been hit especially hard from SSWD. Sunstars are almost nonexistent in Oregon now, which is concerning since they are top predators in kelp forests.

Sea stars consume urchins. Even the urchins they don’t eat are threatened enough to keep from moving along the seafloor. Gravem explained that just the presence of stars intimidate urchins, forcing them to strategically hide in cracks of rocks instead of gorging on kelp. Sea otters are also important predators that keep urchin populations in check, but otters have been extinct in Oregon since the early 1900s from overhunting. In the absence of sea otters and sea stars, urchins have free rein and plow through kelp beds. When the urchins take over, they create what is called an urchin barren, which is what most of Nellies Cove has become. Kelp beds that previously teemed with enough life to support whales are now desolate, with urchin after urchin perched on top of the rocky floor. It’s easy to peek underwater and see the difference, but there is not a lot of actual research being done in Oregon regarding kelp forests. “My best guess is there’s 2-3% of total scientific dives in Oregon as there is in California,” Aaron Galloway, OIMB professor and head of a lab focused on coastal trophic ecology, said. He is a fundamental member of ORKA. The lack of kelp-related scientific research in Oregon is hugely detrimental to restoring and protecting the forests. Galloway said if no one is routinely checking out areas in a scientific manner and documenting the shifts, then it is hard to understand what exactly is influencing those changes and from there what are the necessary steps to re-stabilize the habitat. This is where ORKA comes in. The alliance serves as a hub for people of all backgrounds to come together to combat the problem.

“When you have something so fundamental to the Oregon Coast and it goes away, you have people coming out of the woodwork all trying to solve it for various reasons,” Gravem said. “We all have these strengths, and we’re all bringing them together because we all have the same problem and hopefully some of the same solutions.” And to Galloway and other members, ORKA is also an avenue to politically advocate their causes for the kelp. “Because of the Oregon Kelp Alliance, we have a platform to be able to engage with Senator Merkley’s office about this, and they listen to us,” Galloway said. OKRA has been in contact with Merkley’s office for about a year now. On Oct. 22, 2021, the senator’s office reported that

Merkeley, working with Senator Ron Wyden, secured funding for The Commerce, Justice and Science bill that will support Oregon programs and projects. The House version of the bill is being negotiated for fiscal year 2022. The bill includes $90 million for the Sea Grant Foundation, which is a $15 million increase from previous efforts. There is also $945,000 earmarked for the Ocean Foundation specifically for an Oregon Kelp Forest Survey. Gravem said ORKA has gotten intel from local divers, including urchin divers, about areas where the forests are starting to disappear — she said, in the five specific places divers point to, there’s hardly any baseline survey information. The money from the appropriations bill will hopefully change that. “We really don’t have a good handle on what’s out there right now, other than very anecdotal stuff,” Gravem said. “Next year is all about getting a really good picture of what’s happening in our kelp forests.” One of the ways scientists are trying to restore previously forested areas is by doing repeated urchin culling. Culling involves divers going into urchin barrens and physically smashing the urchins with the goal of terminating enough of the population to allow for kelp to regrow. Nellies Cove has been a big site for testing out if this procedure helps give kelp an opportunity to regrow, and it has also allowed scientists to study the possible repercussions of culling. Gravem said the appropriation money will go mostly toward the surveys done before and after the culling, and hopefully other experiments in the areas will also be going on simultaneously. “We need to do a bunch of these experiments to not only say ‘Oh look, urchins eat kelp, but like how many urchins eat how much kelp? How much do you have to reduce the urchins in order for the kelp to have a foothold?’” Gravem said. The next few years could be a pivotal point in both kelp research and restoration. With the alliance supporting new experiments and culling efforts, there is the possibility to make real headway on getting a good grasp of the severity of the issue and creating a future plan of action. “Most people haven’t seen a kelp forest. Maybe they’ve

seen it floating on the top of the water, but you know it doesn’t look like much from above. But that’s the same view you get of a forest if you’re flying over it in an airplane. You can’t say you’ve seen a Redwood forest if you saw it from an airplane,” Gravem said.

We got the chance to see the myriad of kelp and urchins in my invertebrate zoology class, where we often went tidepooling. While I was not thrilled with the 4:30 a.m. wakeup calls, we spent our time crawling across rocks and peering into pools that were packed full of sea anemones, sculpin and hermit crabs.

One of the places we often went tidepooling at was a cove in Cape Arago State Park. We would all shuffle down the hill, shrouded in morning fog in our rain boots and hoodies, and slowly make our way across the slippery rocks to the shoreline. I could hear our boots crunch down on the blanket of urchins beneath us. Urchin after urchin after urchin buried into perfect urchin-sized holes in the rock. While the situation along the shoreline is not the same as a true urchin barren, it does exemplify the species’ ability to completely overwhelm an area. The first time we went out to the spot as a class, I took home eight urchin tests, known as urchin skeletons, and lined them up along my windowsill in the dorms. That urchin phenomenon in the ocean ripples out past the waves and affects life on land too. Just like trees, kelp stores carbon. Kelp also serves as the base of an ecosystem, and without a foundation to build upon, food chains that we rely on will quickly collapse. Urchin barrens can be paralleled to the charred ground and blackened tree trunks that Oregonians are becoming increasingly familiar with, and while we might not see flames engulfing kelp stalks, we will feel the fallout down the road just the same. Gravem said she hopes that experiments conducted in the following years will yield valuable data, and that ORKA will continue to gain funding for more action. “I think it all boils down to: Kelp forests themselves are a really fundamental part of our coastal culture and economy and generally control a lot of the biodiversity,” Gravem said.