From new member Elyse Hauser comes an intriguing story on how urchins are causing ecological mayhem and if seafood ranches are the key to stopping them. What started as a different ecological disaster wiped out urchin predators, which in turn caused the latter’s numbers to spread out of control. Their food, kelp forests, were once plentiful off the West Coast of North America and were reduced to barren masses of urchins in many parts. Efforts have been made to reign the hungry invertebrates in such as reintroducing some predators and the tried and true method of whacking it with the hammer. However, budding entrepreneurs and farmers have found that “ranching” these urchins provide a win-win solution to dealing with the overpopulation. The urchins are first collected from the zones where they’ve caused devastation before being transferred to the ranch and finally the fork. Find out more on the process of how farms turn sea pests into seafood with a close look on these seafood ranches, led by Hauser’s writing.
Photo: Diego Delso via Wikimedia Commons
,_Madeira,_Portugal,_2019-05-31,_DD_40.jpg){kind=link}