The Mendocino Voice ·
The predator we lost may return — and the kelp is betting on it
Drop a diver into Caspar Cove and the bottom looks like a parking lot — bare rock, purple sea urchins packed wall to wall, not a blade of kelp standing. What could clear it isn’t a machine or a hatchery. It’s a bruise-colored sea star the size of a manhole cover, 20 arms, a taste for urchins — the predator this coast lost, and the one a few divers are starting to find again.