Marine biologist Nancy Caruso remembers swimming underwater off Laguna Beach and barely catching a glimpse of a California sheephead’s large black tail as the fish quickly disappeared into its hiding spot.
Now the carnivorous fish – complete with human-like teeth – is plentiful.
“They’re all around us,” she said, having recently completed her bi-annual kelp survey off the seaside town’s coastline. “I picked up an abalone shell to look for scratch marks (evidence of poaching) and there were three sheepheads lined up like puppies waiting for a treat. One actually bit my finger like ‘Come on.’”
The prevalence of the fish is an indication the kelp forests off Laguna Beach and their inhabitants are rebounding thanks to a year of cooler waters, but even more so, Caruso and other scientists say, because of the regulations protecting the town’s coastline where taking anything from the tidepools, reefs, sea caves and water is off-limits.
On Saturday, June 4, at least 20 environmental groups will join in KelpFest to promote the importance of a thriving ecosystem, where forests of brown kelp play the main role. Laguna Beach, unlike neighboring beaches, has an ideal habitat for kelp forests with steeper terrain and rocky outcroppings where kelp can anchor and grow.
KelpFest will be hosted again by the Laguna Ocean Foundation at Main Beach after being dormant for two years because of the pandemic. There will be fun activities for children as well as educational booths and information on ways to become involved with protecting the ocean environment.
The idea for the festival came from Caruso more than a decade ago when she with Mike Beanan, co-founder of the Laguna Bluebelt Coalition and a former Navy SEAL, wanted to inspire an appreciation of kelp so the public would understand its value as the foundation of the ocean’s ecosystem – which also helps important economic drivers such as tourism and commercial fisheries.
For Caruso, who’s done kelp surveys off the Orange County coastline for two decades, seeing the sheepheads is a prime indicator that kelp forests are growing and that the protections on the coastline in Laguna Beach are working.
Nearly 10 years ago now, Laguna Beach became part of a state network of Marine Protected Areas. Laguna Beach is the only town in the state where all of its beaches, coves and tidepools are protected, and it is the largest in Southern California.
Another sign the underwater ecosystem is restoring its natural balance is a reported decrease in sea urchins – a favorite meal of the sheepheads. Where urchins once could be counted by the thousands, eating away at the valuable kelp, now they are only occasionally found in rocks and cracks.
Beanan said he’s also noticed fewer urchins and a definite increase in sheepheads during his near-weekly swims in the ocean off North Laguna.
“Colorful sheephead are seen more often now as key predators, along with lobsters, managing sea urchin populations,” he said. “Without a thriving kelp forest, fish and sea life lack shelter and food. Abalone, for example, eat loose pieces of kelp drifting in local currents.”
Caruso surveyed local kelp forces in late January and early February and said this is the first year in at least six where she’s witnessed a real change. Among the first things she noticed was that sargassum, an invasive species that had been threatening the kelp, hasn’t grown as tall and dense as it was because it’s being “shaded out by kelp.”
Kelp forests had also been stunted by a period of warmer water, but local temperatures have been cooling since the fall.
“Hopefully we’ll see kelp gain its real estate back,” she said.
In 2009, Caruso with help from 2,000 Orange County students and volunteer divers, replanted kelp in patches from the Newport Jetty to Dana Point.
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“This is the first year we got to see that our restoration was a success,” she said. “I was waiting for an El Nino of two years and we got five years of warm water.
“I got to put that restoration to a test,” she said. “It passed and I’m ecstatic.”
“It’s the capital of kelp here in OC,” she said of Laguna Beach. “It’s now the nature park of kelp and no one can take anything out of it.”
If you go:
What: KelpFest 2022
When: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, June 4
Where: At the cobblestones of Main Beach, which is at Coast Highway and Laguna Canyon Road