A conversation with Aaron Huang, founder of OoNee Sea Urchin Ranch, to dive into the world of sea urchin ranching and its connections to high-end fish restaurants, many of which fly their sea urchins in from Japan. Over the past decade, a warm water blob off the U.S. West Coast has caused sea urchins to overgraze the kelp forests, leading to a massive population boom of urchins, the collapse of kelp ecosystems, and the rise of countless “zombie” sea urchins—urchins that prevent the kelp from regrowing without dying themselves.
Why should we care? Because this phenomenon is happening everywhere—whether it’s invasive species or extreme weather events, ecosystems are collapsing, and without smart intervention, they won’t recover. In this case, the solution is to harvest the sea urchins threatening the remaining kelp, fatten them up, and sell them to the growing market for high-end seafood. What can we learn from this approach and apply to other ecosystems that are out of balance?
LISTEN TO THE CONVERSATION ON:
This episode is part of the Regenerative Aquaculture series, supported by The Nest, a family office dedicated to building a more resilient food system through supporting natural solutions and innovative technologies that change the way we produce food.
WHY THE KELP FORESTS HAVE DISAPPEARED IN THE U.S. PACIFIC WEST COAST
Aaron explains the ecological imbalance caused by the loss of sea urchin predators due to a warm water event.
”When you look at sort of how the species interact in the ecosystem, when the ecosystem itself becomes out of balance, things become out of balance. And what happened over 10 years ago was there’s this blob of warm water in the Pacific. It’s called the warm blob, for obvious reasons. They thought it would basically persist for a few months. Persisted for over a year. In that time, those sea urchin predators, which were these sunflower sea stars that existed by the billions along the west coast of the US, basically melted away. And so, when you have a sort of keystone predator that’s gone, the sea urchins keep doing what they’re doing. And they basically went about and started eating more and more of a kelp forest without any predators or keeping them in check.” Aaron Huang
”Essentially, these urchins, having been survivors in the past millennia, have found ways to survive without actually eating. They simply turn themselves off for a few years. And when the kelp regrows and they smell it, they’ll basically reanimate themselves, and they’ll go back and they’ll eat that little budding piece of kelp. So, without removing the urchins from the kelp forests or the urchin barrens, the kelp does not have a likelihood and a high probability of growing back because there’s just too many urchins out there right now.” Aaron Huang
WHAT ARE ZOMBIE SEA URCHINS, AND WHY ARE THEY A PROBLEM?
Aaron explains the ratio of sea urchins to square meters of kelp forest and the goal of protecting specific areas.
”The research is still ongoing. We do know that focussing on a kelp forest on the precipice is much more productive from an impact and protection standpoint than obviously focussing on an urchin barren. We do know that the ratio of urchins to square meters of kelp—if you will—the sort of healthy ratio is about one urchin per square meter. And so, there are certainly measurements that we use and that partners, like Reef Check, use on the West Coast when they’re doing their scientific monitoring every single year to determine sort of how healthy or not healthy certain areas of the ecosystem are. I think one thing that needs to happen more of is basically bringing more real-time monitoring into the kelp forest so we can sort of see the correlation. But there are certain ratios we’re working off of in certain areas of the kelp forest we know, where we can make the biggest impact right now.” Aaron Huang
‘’This kelp forest degradation and these zombie urchin issues have actually been percolating on the West Coast and across the Pacific and actually Atlantic for a number of years, actually over a decade now, and I’ve always been thinking about my mind, what can we actually do about this? There are definitely a lot of kelp hatcheries getting started; there’s kelp farming; there’s kelp restoration.’’ Aaron Huang
”When they do become a zombie urchin, reanimating them actually takes a lot more work than pulling one that’s kind of on the precipice, if you will, of zombifying themselves.” Aaron Huang
HOW TO GROW SEA URCHINS ON LAND
The potential for land-based systems to decouple aquaculture from the ocean.
”But instead of ranching them close to the coast, you would basically move them into a large warehouse. And that obviously obviates the needs for one major thing, which has been a huge hindrance for aquaculture at large in a lot of Western countries, which is your ability to basically secure not only permits but also secure sites that sometimes compete with wealthy landowners and people that want an unobstructed view of the ocean from their waterfront home. When you sort of think about aquaculture today, you think about Vietnam; you think about the Philippines, Asia, and Norway. But in order, I think, for it to really sort of take off in what I was, sort of say, Western, wealthier countries, you do have to acknowledge that there is a land use issue that has to be resolved. And there are definitely companies that are already starting to set up land-based systems that are decoupled from the coast and moved inshore into warehouses.” Aaron Huang
”You would pull the water in from basically the municipal tab. But you would add your own salts, and you would obviously dechlorinate. That part of itself, is actually not a huge challenge, if you will. It’s actually really just getting the whole recirculating system down from a waste removal perspective.” Aaron Huang
WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM THIS APPROACH AND APPLY IN OTHER ECOSYSTEMS OUT OF BALANCE
Aaron shares his interest in exploring other invasive species that could be turned into sustainable delicacies.
”And then they start proliferating, just like the Python in Florida, but you have a lot of these species that either didn’t exist in their current native ecosystem, or they’ve simply proliferated based off of factors that we talked about with urchins. And there needs to be some intervention here because the ecosystems are out of balance. And if you leave the lionfish in Florida. For example, they’re going to eat all the native species, and then you’re going to have a huge imbalance in terms of all the other fish on the coral reef. And so there have been efforts to basically catch these lionfish. First, people were trying to cook them. The latest iteration of that is that there’s actually people that are trying to make sustainable leather out of the lionfish skin, high-end leather.” Aaron Huang
”So, the lionfish is a great example of Asian invasive Asian carp that have also been introduced into a lot of the waterways in the US. People are attempting to farm those. […] There were invasive blue crabs in Italy last year that the Italians simply didn’t know what to do with, and they’re grinding them into a pulp and throwing them in landfills well, whereas in East Asia, there are people that will eat those crabs as a delicacy. So, there’s a lot of ecosystem issues; if you just stay in tune with what’s going on in the news, that could be all sorts of viable business models.” Aaron Huang
OTHER POINTS DISCUSSED
Koen and Aaron also talked about:
- The need for early-stage funding
- Antibiotic use and environmental concerns
- Entrepreneurial challenges
- Why we have to remove zombie and almost zombie sea urchins fatten them and eat them
LINKS:
- Oo-Nee Sustainable Sea Urchin Ranch
- Lionfish
- Lionfish (Pterois miles) in the Mediterranean Sea: a review of the available knowledge with an update on the invasion front
- Sea Urchin kelp forest dive video
- ‘Zombie’ Urchins Are Destroying Kelp Forests. Can’t We Just Eat Them?
LINKED INTERVIEWS:
- Regenerative Aquaculture series
- Georg Baunach – More than half of the fish you eat is farmed: basics, potential and risks of investing in aquaculture
- Sowmya Balendiran – How to turn seaweed farming into an industry? Start by farming 1000 football fields of tropical seaweed in Indonesia
- Alf Gøran Knutsen – The good, bad opportunities of the multi million dollar salmon industry, from shooting lasers under water to feed
- Yanik Nyberg – Are saltwater plants grown on tens of millions ha of abandoned, drained salt marshes going to be the livestock feed of the future?
- Dan Miller on the crucial role of locally owned processing in regenerative agriculture
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The above references an opinion and is for information and educational purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.