THE OUTDOORS : HELP FOR THE KELP : These Sea Forests Are Unglamorous on the Surface but Indispensable to Marine Life

To the average beach-goer, kelp is anything but glamorous. In large clumps, it regularly washes ashore, where it rots and draws flies.

But to a diver, or anyone else who has ever seen its healthy fronds rising from the ocean floor, an amber gold flowing with the currents, occasionally interrupting the sun’s penetrating rays, kelp is something to behold.

“If you see it from underwater, it’s actually a gigantic forest, as complex as the tropical rain forest that you see, or used to see, in Brazil,” said Ken Wilson, a biologist for the Department of Fish and Game who has worked extensively with kelp for several years.

More important, it is a mainstay of both the sportfishing and commercial fishing communities.

Fishermen seek kelp for the simple reason that fish abound in and around it, some for the safety it provides against larger predators, others for the life it represents--besides fish, several species of mollusks and crustaceans.

Kelp bass, a popular sport and commercial species often incorrectly referred to as calico bass, thrive in kelp forests. Bigger fish, such as yellowtail and white sea bass, regularly patrol the kelp perimeters and feed on the smaller fish.

Drifting kelp “paddies” are frequented by such prized game fish as yellowtail, albacore and dorado.

“To the sportfishing community it’s indispensable because it provides us with so much activity and pleasure,” said Russ Izor, a fishing line manufacturer who has been involved in the fishing industry for decades. “And it’s a marine wonderland for divers.”

Indeed. Both snorkelers and scuba divers find kelp forests excellent hunting grounds for game fish, and some, according to Wilson, just like to swim through it, looking at things.

Many commercial fishermen make their living fishing in or near kelp forests, trapping lobster and crab, grabbing up sea urchins and netting several species of fish. Without it, many would be out of business.

Its importance was recognized by the Chumash Indians, who used to concentrate their villages near kelp forests to be close to the fish and shellfish they provided. They fished primarily off the Ventura-Santa Barbara coastline and at the nearby Channel Islands.

Early explorers used kelp as navigational aids. Drifting kelp indicated that land was near and attached kelp meant either rocks or a shallow bottom.

About 800 species of marine life have been identified in kelp forests from central California to Baja California, according to employees of Kelco Division of Merck & Co., a kelp harvesting company based in San Diego.

Scientists say that kelp’s holdfast--an intertwining root-like system that attaches the kelp to a rocky substrata--alone provides a home for as many as 175 species.

Yet few realize that Southern California’s kelp forests are not what they once were, and are anything but stable.

Giant kelp, a delicate yet fast-growing underwater plant whose fronds can grow as much as two feet a day, has been assaulted by pollution, pounded by winter storms and smothered by sedimentation.

In the mid-1940s kelp beds from Point Conception to the Mexican border began to diminish. Developers tore away the oceanside hills at an incredible rate and much of the resulting sediment washed into the ocean, covering areas of the rocky substrata necessary for kelp.

Pollution increased as well and the water became more turbid, preventing the sun’s rays from penetrating deep enough for effective photosynthesis to occur.

And herbivorous sea urchins that generally grazed on loose kelp, couldn’t find as much and began attacking live kelp. Their numbers also grew as their predators fell victim to increased fishing pressure.

By the late 1960s, kelp had all but disappeared off the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Only two known plants remained, according to Dr. Wheeler North of Caltech. Recalled a spokesman for Redondo Sportfishing, which sends boats daily to fish the kelp beds off the peninsula: “You couldn’t find a strip of kelp down here and . . . back in the ‘50s, it used to come out a good 300-400 yards offshore. And when that kelp disappeared, the fishing got so bad out there.”

North, with the aid of Izor and other volunteers, began reforestation efforts at the Palos Verdes Peninsula, using live plants from Santa Catalina Island. He wasn’t very successful, Wilson says, because of “environmental factors.”

The Department of Fish and Game began a parallel program in 1971.

“We put in so much kelp and had such a huge biomass that the kelp beds really went wild,” Wilson said. “At the same time, the District of Sanitation began cleaning up sewage at White’s Point (on the Palos Verdes Peninsula), as mandated by the EPA.”

The clean-water acts of 1971 helped decrease the turbidity of the water, allowing the necessary light to penetrate and photosynthesis to occur. With much of the coastal construction completed, sediment no longer appeared to be as serious a problem.

Reforestation efforts grew and many of the kelp beds began to rebound.

Today, however, hungry sea urchins pose perhaps the greatest threat ever to Southern California’s kelp forests.

No longer effectively controlled by natural predators--lobster and sheepshead, urchins’ primary enemies, were heavily harvested to meet the growing demand for seafood--urchin populations have grown as never before.

Wilson said the prickly herbivore is responsible for the destruction of as much as 2,000 acres of kelp off the Southern California coast and offshore islands and as of yet an effective control method hasn’t been found.

“Divers with hammers can remove about 52 urchins a minute,” he said. But he added that in areas where densities are too high--urchin populations in excess of 200 per 10 square feet and about a meter thick exist in some areas off Palos Verdes--that method proves ineffective.

Suction machines have been tried, but other species are often taken in the process. Tests are currently under way to determine whether quicklime, a chemical that some say also poses a threat to other species, might be an effective method.

A market opened up for the bigger red urchins in 1971, causing their numbers to decline, but the white and purple urchins are too small to make for a worthwhile fishery. They range almost undisturbed across the ocean floor, grazing on kelp in “feeding fronts” traveling as fast as a foot a day.

Currently, Kelco and MBC Applied Sciences, working under contracts by the DFG, are continuing efforts to reforest and maintain--largely through urchin control--historic kelp forests in Santa Barbara and Laguna Beach.

But prospective budget cuts by the DFG loom in the future, and some say the continuance of kelp reforestation projects may lose out to the more appealing artificial reef program, also part of the DFG’s near-shore enhancement program.

“Kelp forests and their contribution (to fisheries) are more subtle than are the contribution of artificial reefs,” said Wilson, who is recommending reforestation and urchin control at several selected areas from Point Conception to the offshore islands to San Diego.

“I hope they can find some money for next year and the year following, to keep this momentum up.”