Calif.'s Underwater Forests Being Eaten by ‘Cockroaches of the Ocean’

"ALBION, Calif. — Early on a gray summer Saturday, an unusual assemblage — commercial fishermen, recreational boaters, neoprene-clad divers — gathered for a mission at Albion Cove, a three-hour drive north of San Francisco.

“Our target today is the purple urchin,” said Josh Russo, a recreational fishing advocate who organized the event. “The evil purple urchin.”

Five years ago, assigning wickedness to the purple urchin, a shellfish the size of a plum with quarter-inch spikes, would have been absurd.

That was before the urchins mowed down Northern California’s kelp forests."

Kendra Pierre-Louis reports for the New York Times October 22, 2018.