Former Air Force Officer Warns Of Atmospheric Spraying And The Coming Collapse

It’s not lookin’ good for the home team, crab, salmon, trout, etc…and now Kelp…Gone!  from Santa Rosa Press Democrat, front page header two days ago…already cancelled crab season for the entire West Coast….

Collapse of kelp forest imperils North Coast ocean ecosystem

Large tracts of kelp forest that once blanketed the sea off the North Coast have vanished over the past two years, a startling transformation that scientists say stems from rapid ecological change and has potentially far-reaching impacts, including on several valuable fisheries.

The unprecedented collapse has been observed along hundreds of miles of coastline from San Francisco to Oregon. The region’s once-lush stands of bull kelp, a large brown alga that provides food and habitat for a host of wildlife species, have been devoured by small, voracious purple urchins. In the most-affected areas, denuded kelp stalks are almost all that remains of plant life.

Scientists have described the landscape left behind as an “urchin barren.” Other factors, including warmer water, also are to blame, they say.

Laura Rogers-Bennett, another Bodega Bay scientist, said it is as if whole terrestrial forests were disappearing, only in this case they are underwater and out of sight.

“A lot fewer people swim through the kelp forest,” she said. “But if they do right now, they‘re going to really see that there are huge changes that have taken place in the last year and a half or so.”

The discovery has taken shape as California scientists and policy makers are raising a broader alarm over the ebbing health of ocean waters, pointing to their increasing warmth, acidity and other conditions that have affected wildlife and the fishing industry.

The state’s commercial Dungeness crab fleet has endured a disastrous year, with fishermen forced to sit out the most lucrative months of their season over health concerns presented by a naturally occurring neurotoxin. Its prolonged presence in the sought-after crustaceans, which account for California’s single- most valuable ocean fishery, at more than $60 million, was tied to the same warm-water conditions impacting kelp beds.

The extended drought, meanwhile, has contributed to a grim forecast for the upcoming commercial salmon catch — the second-most valuable fishery, worth more than $12 million two years ago. The projection has salmon fishermen from Eureka to Morro Bay bracing for their second consecutive meager year.

The kelp collapse may only add to the woes for some.