‘Look, but Don’t Take or Touch’ Is the Message : The environment: A group of students concerned about the tide pools use this opportunity to pass out leaflets about sea life and tell visitors to be careful.

Hundreds of beach-goers attracted by exceptionally low tides were swarming across the reefs below Heisler Park Sunday, poking around tide pools--and inadvertently crunching the scores of marine creatures underfoot.

It was a sight to chill an environmentalist, but there was a small group of student activists there to sound the alarm and keep the casualties to a minimum. The students spent several hours moving through the crowd to tell sightseers about the fragility of the reef’s ecosystem.

“I love the beach. I don’t want to see it get ruined,” said Julie Kovacs, a junior at Dana Hills High School, as she passed out literature to beach visitors and warned them not to destroy or remove anything from the area. The reefs are a marine life refuge protected by state law.

Julie, a member of Students Against a Vanishing Environment (SAVE), was one of about two dozen high school and college students who stationed themselves at various sections of the Orange County coastline Sunday as the area was experiencing the the twice-yearly phenomenon known as “minus tides.” During this time of exceptionally low tides, the tide pools and their abundant marine life can be seen.

The tide began dropping around noon Sunday, and within a few hours beach-goers were treading across more than 50 yards of reef that normally would have been submerged under several feet of water.

Minus tides result when the sun and moon are in a certain position relative to the Earth. The combined gravitational effect of the sun and moon causes extreme tides around the times of the winter and summer equinoxes. In the summer, however, the minus tides occur at night, posing less risk to the tide pools. The winter minus tides will continue for several weeks.

The students and their instructors picked Sunday as a particularly “high impact day” to take their message to the public: it would be one of the first days of the very low tides, and its being on the weekend meant that many people were likely to be there.

Natasha Chandanani, co-president of SAVE and also a Dana Hills High junior, said the group’s beach blitz would help protect the coastline during a particularly sensitive time and also give the students an opportunity to take their appeals on behalf of the environment directly to the public.

“They’re ignorant--not all of them, but many of them,” Natasha said of the beach-goers. “They need to be educated, and you have to get out and do your part.”

Protected Area

At the core of the students’ effort, they said, is a simple message: Feel free to look but not to touch or take.

The lifeguards at Laguna reinforced that injunction with announcements over a public address system notifying beach-goers that they were visiting a protected area and that taking anything from it is against the law. Violators can face a $1,000 fine and six months’ imprisonment.

Lee Waian, head of the Saddleback College environmental studies department and an organizer for the outing, was there Sunday, surveying the scores of people--and a few dogs--combing the reef near Laguna’s Main Beach.

“Just the sheer numbers of people out here shows how important this is,” Waian said of the students’ efforts.

Neither Waian nor the students were asking beach-goers to stay out of the area. Indeed, they applaud public interest in marine life. But, Waian said, tide pools are exceptionally fragile, and visitors must approach them carefully to avoid doing serious damage.

For example, he said, some beach-goers will stumble upon beautiful shells nestled in the cracks of the reef. Some, after checking to see that nothing is living inside, he said, will then pocket the shell and “put it up on the mantle.” Although that by itself may not do any immediate harm, he said, it does have a long-term impact. “If you do that, you’ve reduced the number of housing sites for hermit crabs,” he said.

“You can love a resource to death as well as kill it with malice or ignorance. What we’re trying to develop is a more sophisticated way of loving our environment.”

Most beach-goers appeared concerned about heeding the warnings. But, Waian said, a videotape technician working with the students recorded several divers leaving the area with bags of shellfish and other marine life. The divers concealed their catch and fled, he said, but the tape is being reviewed and will be shown to state Department of Fish and Game officials should the subjects be identifiable.

Most visitors, however, were being as careful as possible as they picked their way through the tide pool rocks. Sightseers approached Waian and the students for copies of their leaflets, and one young girl interpreted the message for a group of Spanish-speaking visitors, who nodded appreciatively.

“I think people are being pretty sensitive to it,” said Paul Russell of Laguna Beach. “Most people try to be caring about the tide pools.”

Roy Miller of Huntington Beach, who was visiting the beach with his daughter and grandson, agreed but said he worries that the increasing public interest in tide pools could hurt them in the long run. Miller pointed to the damp rocks teeming with mussels, crabs, sea anemones and sea urchins. “There’s no way you can walk without stepping on some of that life,” he said. “I just don’t know what the happy balance is between caring and doing damage.”

TIDE POOL CREATURES

Opaleye

Spawn during April, May and June. Mature at 2 to 3 yeary, reach 8 to 9 inches. Feed on algae and eelgrass, apparently takeing most of their nourishment from small animals living on the plants.

Giant green anemone

Solitary,but often in tentacle-tip contact with one another in favorable tide pools and channels. Bright green when living in open daylight. Feed on animals they can sting and engulf,including crabs, fish and detached mussels.

California mussel

Dominates mussel beds in exposed rocky situations along Pacific Coast. Elongated shells, larger than any other mussel.

Chiton

Mertens’Chiton spawns in February. Egg cases have ridgelike projections with wavy edges, Species name honors Carl H. Mertens (1796-1830), a German physician-naturalist.

Wavy turban

Moves into shallower,warmer water when it reproduces. Abundant in shallow water in Southern California. Larger specimens found in deeper water, especially among kelp.

Pacific rock crab

Phylum arthropoda, class crustacea. A scavenger and predator, successful at devouring hermit crabs.

Octopus

Commonly found between high and low tide lines on mud flats as well as among rocks. One of two closely related species of Two-spotted octopods,first differentiated in 1949.

Giant sea star

Red, brown, tan or purple with blue rings around base of spines. Radius of 12 inches. Body rough,firm; arms thick; spines large and well-spaced.

Purple sea urchin

Often live in rounded depressions in rock, which they slowly erode with their teeth and spines.

Volcano limpet

Preyed upon by sea stars, which it can detect at short distances; responds by fleeing. Reddish or purple streaks on the slopes of shell resemble streaks of lava.

Source: Environmental Studies Department, Saddleback College