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Save the Underwater Kelp Forests That Millions of Animals Call Home
Final signature count: 47
47 signatures toward our 30,000 goal
Sponsor: Free The Ocean
California's north coast lost over 95% of its kelp canopy in just over a decade. What's left is bare seafloor.
Kelp forests once lined thousands of miles of North America's Pacific coastline — dense, towering ecosystems that sheltered rockfish, harbor seals, gray whales, red abalone, and hundreds of invertebrate species. Today, much of that habitat is gone. Along California's north coast, bull kelp canopy coverage fell by more than 95 percent between 2008 and 2019.4 What remains in many areas is bare seafloor.
How It Happened
Two disasters hit at the same time. Starting around 2013, a sea star wasting disease swept through Pacific waters and effectively wiped out sunflower sea stars — the primary predator that kept purple sea urchin populations in check.2 Then, from 2014 to 2016, a massive marine heat wave known as "the Blob" warmed Pacific waters and stressed kelp growth just as urchin numbers were surging without natural control.4
The result was urchin barrens — stretches of seafloor grazed so completely that kelp cannot reestablish even when conditions briefly improve. In a food-scarce environment, urchins enter a low-metabolism dormant state and can persist for years, locking out recovery.2
The Crisis Is Still Ongoing
More than a decade after the Blob, ocean temperatures along the California coast remain elevated, and sunflower sea stars are still functionally absent from these waters.3 Kelp that manages to sprout gets grazed down before it can form a canopy. The fishing communities and coastal economies built around kelp-associated species — particularly rockfish and red abalone — face an ongoing crisis with no clear end date.3
The stakes extend beyond wildlife. A single kelp plant can grow up to two feet per day and reach 150 feet in length, creating vertical structure in the water column that no other organism replicates at the same scale.1 These forests absorb wave energy, buffer coastlines, and sequester carbon. When they disappear, so does everything that depended on them.
Restoration Works — But Needs Federal Support
Passive recovery is not happening on its own. Targeted urchin removal programs have allowed kelp to return in localized areas, and captive breeding efforts for sunflower sea stars are underway — but reintroduction at scale remains years away and requires sustained investment.2,3 Research into heat-resilient kelp strains and long-term monitoring systems are also critical pieces that voluntary and local efforts alone cannot fund.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has both the authority and the responsibility to act. Expanded federal restoration funding — for urchin removal, species recovery, and resilience research — is the only path to recovery at the scale this crisis demands.
Sign the petition now to urge NOAA to expand federal funding for kelp forest restoration. These ecosystems, and the species and communities that depend on them, cannot wait.
