---
title: "you don't have an empty reef. you have a missing forest"
canonical_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/you-dont-have-an-empty-reef-you-have-a-missing-forest
markdown_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/you-dont-have-an-empty-reef-you-have-a-missing-forest.md
subtitle: the closed abalone season and the empty urchin are receipts for a canopy that stopped
category: ecosystem-services
---

# you don't have an empty reef. you have a missing forest

*the closed abalone season and the empty urchin are receipts for a canopy that stopped*

An **urchin barren** is what a rocky reef looks like after the kelp forest is gone. The California Fish and Game Commission closed the recreational red abalone fishery in 2018, and the [California Department of Fish and Wildlife](https://wildlife.ca.gov/Conservation/Marine/Invertebrates/Abalone) records that the closure now runs to 2036, extended at the Commission's December 2025 meeting. Red abalone starved where the kelp was gone. The closed season is a receipt for a canopy that stopped.

The reef still has a name. The canopy does not. The canopy itself is [what a kelp forest actually is](/guide/what-a-kelp-forest-actually-is?from=guide). This page is the reef with that canopy missing.

:::johnson
**an urchin barren is the reef with the forest gone.**

The closed abalone season and the empty commercial urchin are receipts. The living canopy is what they are receipts for.

[what a kelp forest actually is →](/guide/what-a-kelp-forest-actually-is?from=guide)
:::

## what an urchin barren is

An urchin barren is a rocky reef dominated by sea urchins, with the kelp canopy gone. [NOAA Fisheries](https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/meet-oonee-sea-urchin-ranchers-oregon) describes the urchins there as dormant and starved: still alive, and ready to eat any new kelp that tries to grow. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife says the same thing from the abalone's side. Sea urchins can maintain a barren for many years. Abalone cannot survive in one.

**Purple sea urchins** (*Strongylocentrotus purpuratus*) are native to this coast. A barren is that native grazer, in the numbers that follow when its predator is gone and the water stays hot, on rock the forest used to hold. A rocky reef on this coast can sit as a kelp forest or as an urchin barren. The Oregon Kelp Alliance's 2024 status report finds many Oregon sites already in the second state: habitat that no longer supports substantial kelp.

On the Oregon coast and on California's North Coast, the canopy that left is **bull kelp** (*Nereocystis luetkeana*). Giant kelp (*Macrocystis pyrifera*) is a different forest, farther south. The difference is [bull kelp and giant kelp are not the same forest](/guide/bull-kelp-and-giant-kelp-are-not-the-same-forest?from=guide).

> An urchin barren is the same rocky reef with the kelp forest missing.

## four receipts for a canopy that stopped

People already felt the forest leave. A season closed. The commercial urchin was too poor to sell. A predator that used to be common was gone. Read them as receipts. The forest is the thing they record.

| receipt | what it records |
|---|---|
| **closed red-abalone season** | The recreational fishery for red abalone (*Haliotis rufescens*) closed in 2018. CDFW's page says surveys that year found lower densities and freshly emptied shells, and that the closure was extended to 2036 at the December 2025 Commission meeting. The animals starved for lack of kelp. |
| **empty commercial urchin** | Red urchin divers left historic grounds, including Orford Reef, because the kelp was gone and the red urchins were poor quality from a limited food supply. The Oregon Kelp Alliance's 2024 status report records that exit. Purple urchins taken from a barren typically have poor gonad quality and low market value. The uni is the product, and a barren has little of it to sell. |
| **sunflower star gone** | Sunflower sea stars (*Pycnopodia helianthoides*) prey on urchins. The 2024 status report records a 99% reduction in Oregon. The Statesman Journal, on November 2, 2025, reported the same 99% loss. |
| **living canopy** | Bull kelp standing in the nearshore, drift falling into the crevices, and new plants able to recruit. This is the object the other three rows record as missing. |

The forest is the thing those receipts are for.

## how a forest becomes a barren

Wasting and the heat came together. The mowing followed. Sea star wasting disease began in 2013 and removed the sunflower sea stars that prey on urchins. The Oregon Kelp Alliance's 2024 status report records a 99% reduction of those stars in Oregon. In the same years a marine heatwave held the nearshore hot. The report places intense heatwaves from 2014 to 2016, beyond safe temperatures for kelp in many places, so growth and reproduction failed. Steven Rumrill, shellfish program leader at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, told the Fish and Wildlife Commission that the urchin explosion along the West Coast coincided with that heatwave, "the blob," beginning around 2014. [KLCC reported his account](https://www.klcc.org/environment/2025-02-17/odfw-commission-takes-action-to-hammer-kelp-eating-sea-urchins-in-three-coastal-test-areas) on February 17, 2025.

With the predator scarce and the water hot, purple urchins mowed what was left. In a standing forest they often stay in crevices and eat drift kelp. When the drift thins, they move onto open rock and graze live plants, including through the stipe that holds a bull kelp to the bottom. The next year's recruits do not get a season. The urchins can wait out that season in a starved state. The rock stays a barren.

Keep the counts in the windows where they were measured.

The Oregon Kelp Alliance's 2024 status report finds canopy cover down **67–73%** from 2010 to 2022. That range is an aerial survey of the south coast and a satellite estimate of the whole coastline. The report estimates that more than two-thirds of the state's kelp forest habitat no longer supports substantial kelp. About **892 acres** of bull kelp forest have disappeared since 2010. The report's summary places that loss in Oregon. The acres themselves are the aerial-survey loss from Brookings to Cape Arago.

The [Statesman Journal, on November 2, 2025](https://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/local/2025/11/02/new-strategies-may-help-oregons-struggling-kelp-forests-bounce-back/86818900007/), reported two-thirds of Oregon's kelp forests gone between 2010 and 2024. Same coast. The status report's window ends in 2022. The newspaper's window runs through 2024.

Rumrill told the commission that declines in some areas off Brookings, Cape Arago, and Port Orford had exceeded **90%**. His 90% is local to some of those areas. The statewide figure remains the status report's 67–73%.

On California's North Coast, a [California Sea Grant](https://caseagrant.ucsd.edu/our-work/research-projects/accelerating-bull-kelp-ecosystem-recovery-recently-deforested-location) project page states that over **96%** of bull kelp canopy has been lost. That 96% is the North Coast. Oregon's figure is the 67–73% above.

## kelp came back inside the culled patch

A barren can grow kelp again when the grazing drops. The evidence is a patch. The coast is larger than the patch.

On February 17, 2025, KLCC reported that the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission had authorized targeted culling at three sites: **Nellies Cove** at Port Orford, **Macklyn Cove** at Brookings, and **Kiwanda Rock** at Pacific City. The short-term goal was on the order of 250,000 urchins. Each site keeps a control area where no urchins are culled, so the test can be read against rock that was left alone. The Oregon Kelp Alliance leads the work with Reef Check. Rumrill called the cull a science project, to see whether lower grazing lets bull kelp rebound. The divers and the alliance are doing the work. The barren is the condition they are testing.

The Statesman Journal, on November 2, 2025, reported that divers had destroyed more than **260,000** urchins at three south-coast sites. A drone survey found that within two months, kelp had returned at Macklyn Cove, in the area where the urchins were culled. The Statesman's count is more than 260,000 animals removed. The commission's short-term goal, reported earlier that year, was on the order of 250,000. Two labels, two moments.

[Reef Check](https://www.reefcheck.org/kelp-restoration-gets-underway-in-oregon-with-encouraging-signs-of-recovery), on June 26, 2026, reported that Macklyn Cove and Nellies Cove had naturally recruited kelp for the first time in nearly a decade. For some of the people on that training, it was the first kelp they had seen at those sites.

Hold both. On a cove that just lost its canopy, bringing the grazer count down can be how the first plants come back. Macklyn Cove is where that happened. Kelp inside the culled patch, beside a control that was not culled, is a recovery signal. A forest is the canopy that recruits on its own the next year. A line of seeded twine is a tool for starting plants. That tool is the subject of [a line of twine is not a kelp forest](/guide/a-line-of-twine-is-not-a-kelp-forest?from=guide).

## what the receipt is for

The closed season is the receipt. The forest is what the receipt is for.

The [Oregon Kelp Alliance](https://www.oregonkelp.com/) describes its own collaboration as commercial urchin divers, researchers, managers, conservationists, and tribal members, in support of healthy kelp forests. [Governments](/solutions/governments?from=guide&topic=kelp-forest) is where a coastal community starts climate adaptation planning. [Tribes](/solutions/tribes?from=guide&topic=kelp-forest) is the door for stewardship that leaves sovereignty where it already sits.

[**Ensurance**](/coastal-resilience.syndicate?from=guide) funds the living forest. It is not the forest. The fish, the abalone, and the otters that use that forest are there whether or not anyone buys a certificate.

A coral reef is an animal city, and a beach that thins is that city's receipt. The sand story is [you don't have a beach problem. you have a missing reef](/guide/you-dont-have-a-beach-problem-you-have-a-missing-reef?from=guide). The city is named in [what coral reefs actually are](/guide/what-coral-reefs-actually-are?from=guide). This page stays with the kelp.

## frequently asked questions

### what is an urchin barren?

An urchin barren is a rocky reef where the kelp canopy is gone and sea urchins hold the rock. On the Oregon coast and California's North Coast the urchin is usually the native purple sea urchin, *Strongylocentrotus purpuratus*, and the missing canopy is bull kelp. The reef is still there. The forest is what is missing.

### why did the kelp forest collapse?

Sea star wasting disease, beginning in 2013, reduced sunflower sea stars in Oregon by 99%. A marine heatwave from 2014 to 2016 then made the nearshore too hot for kelp to grow and reproduce in many places. Purple urchins, already native, grazed the standing kelp and kept new plants off the rock. The Oregon Kelp Alliance measured canopy cover down 67–73% from 2010 to 2022. California Sea Grant states that over 96% of bull kelp canopy has been lost on California's North Coast. Those are two coasts.

### can an urchin barren grow kelp again?

Kelp can recruit again where grazing drops. The Statesman Journal reported that kelp returned at Macklyn Cove within two months, inside the area where divers had culled urchins. Reef Check reported on June 26, 2026, that Macklyn Cove and Nellies Cove had naturally recruited kelp for the first time in nearly a decade. That is evidence a barren can grow kelp. A forest is the canopy that keeps recruiting the next year.

## sources

[California Department of Fish and Wildlife — Abalone](https://wildlife.ca.gov/Conservation/Marine/Invertebrates/Abalone) — recreational red abalone fishery closed in 2018; closure extended to 2036 at the December 2025 Commission meeting; urchins can hold a barren for years, and abalone cannot survive in one.

[Oregon Kelp Alliance, *Oregon Kelp Forest Status Report* (2024)](https://www.oregonkelp.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/ORKA_StatusReport_2024-Digital-150dpi.pdf) — canopy cover down 67–73% from 2010 to 2022; more than two-thirds of kelp forest habitat no longer supports substantial kelp; about 892 acres of bull kelp forest disappeared since 2010, from southern-coast aerial surveys (Brookings to Cape Arago); sunflower sea stars reduced 99% in Oregon; red urchin divers left grounds including Orford Reef.

[Oregon Kelp Alliance — urchin/dulse co-culture](https://www.oregonkelp.com/projects/urchin-dulse-co-culture/) — urchins from barrens typically have poor gonad quality and low market value.

[Oregon Kelp Alliance](https://www.oregonkelp.com/) — the collaboration includes commercial urchin divers, researchers, managers, conservationists, and tribal members.

[Statesman Journal, November 2, 2025](https://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/local/2025/11/02/new-strategies-may-help-oregons-struggling-kelp-forests-bounce-back/86818900007/) — two-thirds of Oregon's kelp forests disappeared between 2010 and 2024; divers destroyed more than 260,000 urchins at three south-coast sites; kelp returned at Macklyn Cove within two months in the culled area; sunflower sea stars in Oregon saw a 99% loss.

[KLCC, February 17, 2025](https://www.klcc.org/environment/2025-02-17/odfw-commission-takes-action-to-hammer-kelp-eating-sea-urchins-in-three-coastal-test-areas) — Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission authorized culling at Nellies Cove, Macklyn Cove, and Kiwanda Rock; short-term goal on the order of 250,000 urchins; Steven Rumrill on the blob and on local losses above 90%.

[Reef Check, June 26, 2026](https://www.reefcheck.org/kelp-restoration-gets-underway-in-oregon-with-encouraging-signs-of-recovery/) — Macklyn Cove and Nellies Cove naturally recruited kelp for the first time in nearly a decade.

[California Sea Grant — bull kelp recovery, North Coast](https://caseagrant.ucsd.edu/our-work/research-projects/accelerating-bull-kelp-ecosystem-recovery-recently-deforested-location) — over 96% of bull kelp canopy lost on California's North Coast.

[NOAA Fisheries — OoNee sea urchin ranchers](https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/meet-oonee-sea-urchin-ranchers-oregon) — a sea urchin barren is a place devoid of kelp and full of urchins in a dormant, starved state.

## the series

Five posts on the kelp forest. Bull kelp and giant kelp already stand in the nearshore. An urchin barren is the reef with that forest gone.

1. [what a kelp forest actually is](/guide/what-a-kelp-forest-actually-is?from=guide)
2. [you don't have an empty reef. you have a missing forest](/guide/you-dont-have-an-empty-reef-you-have-a-missing-forest?from=guide) — you are here
3. [bull kelp and giant kelp are not the same forest](/guide/bull-kelp-and-giant-kelp-are-not-the-same-forest?from=guide)
4. [a line of twine is not a kelp forest](/guide/a-line-of-twine-is-not-a-kelp-forest?from=guide)
5. [who already keeps the forest in the water](/guide/who-already-keeps-the-forest-in-the-water?from=guide)