catton: : this is what it loloos like to bebe underwater in a bul kelp fororest. this is what we used to survey through, and today, where we are seeing this vast expanse of no bull kelp, the culmination of these--this persistent starvation is, in part, due to an exexpansion of e purple u urchin population. and purplele urchins are a natural part of the system. we're seeing these urchins, which are little balls of spines, basically, with a mouth on the bottom that will start to form feeding fronts and mow down everything that they come across on the reef. lackey: it really started to change quickly. we sawaw a lotot more purple urchinins. the kelp started to not look as healthy. we really stararted seeing the lastst kelp, more urchins,s, ani think therere were a lot of peoe surprisesed. man: when n we started this urcn removal project, it was really small. it was jujust a few peope that really wanteded to do something about ththe urchin exexplosion because the e depart hadn't been doing anything. we removed 57 7 tons of purple ururchins, between the recreationalal