Efforts to Restore Kelp Suffering Growing Pains

Ford's 1 acre lies below 32 feet of murky water off Malibu -- one of several patches off the Southern California coast where biologists from Santa Barbara to San Diego are determined to re-carpet the ocean floor with giant kelp, a leafy, golden-brown seaweed that has largely disappeared from the region.

But for all the millions in private and public funds spent since the 1960s, experts say, the effort may be in vain. Over the last half-century, nearly 75% of Southern California's once-flourishing kelp beds have vanished, particularly off Los Angeles and Orange counties.

Like coral reefs and tropical rain forests, kelp is a critical habitat, its floating canopies providing shelter and foraging grounds for marine life. Without it, biologists say, Southern California's already depleted fish population will shrink even further.

"If you go into a kelp forest, the place is swarming with fish," said Paul Dayton, a marine ecology professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. "Take out that kelp and the fish won't go extinct, but they'll be much rarer because they don't have the habitat

Since the 1960s, scientists -- including academics and those from government agencies and nonprofit groups -- have tried to restore the kelp.

Even after El Nino storms ripped the plants out, divers kept coming back with tens of thousands of seedlings. When that didn't work, they scattered spores. They even tried warding off marauding urchins and fish by draping giant nets over baby kelp beds to try to protect them from being eaten.

None of their efforts amounted to much: Only 2 acres of kelp were restored in Southern California from 2001 to 2004, say environmental groups that spent $2.5 million in state and federal grants.

"Little programs to help plant a little kelp here and there is like putting a finger in a hole in a dike to hold back water," said Scripps ecologist Ed Parnell. "How much effect can a few divers replanting a few kelp plants here and there [have] in the face of El Nino?"

Kelp, algae that can grow in depths of 30 to 80 feet and to even greater lengths, is the second-most diverse marine community, supporting nearly 800 species ranging from sea squirts to sheephead fish and sea scallops. Even gulls and sand crabs reap benefits when tangled clusters of kelp wash ashore.