The ocean along the Mendocino Coast is not only beautiful, it’s also home to some fascinating creatures. Take the sunflower ...

Urchin "barrens" are vast, stretching through Oregon, and their natural predators are absent from the north coast: Sunflower stars are locally extinct due to a mysterious disease, and sea otters ...

Urchin “barrens” are vast ... Sunflower stars are locally extinct due to a mysterious disease, and sea otters — a keystone species — haven’t returned to this part of the coast since ...

Urchin “barrens” are vast, stretching through Oregon, and their natural predators are absent from the north coast: Sunflower stars are locally extinct due to a mysterious disease, and sea otters — a ...

He added: “However it is littered with crab shells and the odd sea urchin, and otter spraint and rowan-berry pine marten scat. “Camera traps were set up by a neighbour and I, and we ...

The loss of the otters allowed a population explosion of their sea urchin prey, which overgrazed the kelp forests on which the sea cows depended. A reader new to the science of extinction will ...

(pensive music) For instance, sea otters eat urchins, which reduces urchin predation on kelp. This allows kelp forest habitats to thrive, preventing shoreline erosion and promoting biodiversity.

Warming sea water has triggered an ... But even without these in place the Otter Force One can still be used by human divers to improve their urchin-gathering efficiency.