The Channel Islands- Underwater Wilderness

	Some 60 miles from Los Angeles lies a haven for ocean plants and animals. For a chilly month last winter, photographer Jeff Rotman explored this world of sea urchins and other fantastic creatures. Text by Deborah Knight Imagine swimming through a forest-an underwater forest. Giant kelp rises to the distant surface. Orange garibaldi fish stare with their downcast eyes. Below, the kelp weaves its holdfasts over rocks, gripping them like an iron fist. Empty lobster shells litter the bottom, molted like outgrown shirts. Fat sea cucumbers lie on the rocks, and tiny naked snails called nudibranchs glow in exotic colors: a royal-purple body with bright-orange bristles. This is life in a marine reserve, a 35-acre no-fishing zone that lies within the Channel Islands National Park, some 60 miles northwest of Los Angeles. Outside the reserve, the picture changes. In some areas the kelp is gone, and with it the crowded house of life. Little purple sea urchins shine from almost bare rocks, a profusion of lavender flowers that bloom with a devastating beauty. They gobble up every young kelp plant, for no lobsters, horn sharks, or sheephead keep them in check. Yet these more barren waters are also protected, as part of both the 250,000-acre national park and a larger national marine sanctuary. But neither designation precludes one significant human activity: fishing. The word wilderness brings to mind mountains, forests, plains, deserts. But kelp forest? Rocky bottom? Our concept of wilderness rarely extends to the oceans. Now, however, the tide may be turning. At the Channel Islands, a network of much larger fishing-free reserves may be created-one of the first such efforts in the nation. The idea was kick-started by Jim Donlon, a crusty-voiced recreational fisherman who has watched the area's ocean life disappear over the past 50 years. Donlon blames the California legislature, since the state regulates coastal fisheries. "People should be put in jail for not taking care of a public resource," he fumes. In January 1999 his group, the Channel Islands Marine Resource Restoration Committee, asked the state to close at least 20 percent of the park's waters to fishing. Now state and federal agencies have engaged scientists, local residents, fishermen, and environmentalists to draw up a plan. The Channel Islands are unusually thick with life because of an ocean upwelling that draws detritus from the depths, nourishing an army of plankton that turns the water a soupy green. The sumptuous food chain attracts whales and porpoises, seals and sea lions, seabirds, tourists, divers, and fishermen. This marine wealth was recognized in 1980, when the islands and their waters became a national park. A large reserve here, Donlon and others hope, would eventually replenish the surrounding fisheries as well. And if a marine reserve can succeed in the Channel Islands, where so much life converges, it may help us think differently about wilderness beneath the waves. Kelp snails, with their vivid red foot, live and feed on giant kelp. They provide habitat for a snail called the slipper limpet, which attaches to the host animal's shell. The teeth of the California horn shark are set in rows that rotate inward, moving prey along as a conveyor belt would. The front teeth grasp, while the back rows lie flat and grind. Horn sharks eat sea urchins and crustaceans, grinding away their spines and crushing their shells. The shark's curved nostril-flaps channel water into its nose so the shark can smell. The female lays a spiral egg case in which a single shark grows, nourished by yolk. After eight or nine months it wriggles out, a perfect six-inch replica of the two- to three-foot adult. In a confined space, without plentiful food, the shark will remain small, and scientists now worry about a new fad: the collection of young horn sharks for the home-aquarium trade. Giant kelp plants wrap a rootlike holdfast firmly around rocks on the bottom and send out a central stipe that can grow 100 feet up and another 30 feet along the surface. Blades grow off the central stipe, each with an air bladder that helps keep the plant afloat. Like rainforests, kelp forests offer food and refuge to an array of species at every level, from the bottom to the canopy. Though kelp is sometimes torn up by winter storms, it regrows quickly-as much as 14 inches in a day.

Some 60 miles from Los Angeles lies a haven for ocean plants and animals. For a chilly month last winter, photographer Jeff Rotman explored this world of sea urchins and other fantastic creatures.

Text by Deborah Knight

Imagine swimming through a forest-an underwater forest. Giant kelp rises to the distant surface. Orange garibaldi fish stare with their downcast eyes. Below, the kelp weaves its holdfasts over rocks, gripping them like an iron fist. Empty lobster shells litter the bottom, molted like outgrown shirts. Fat sea cucumbers lie on the rocks, and tiny naked snails called nudibranchs glow in exotic colors: a royal-purple body with bright-orange bristles. This is life in a marine reserve, a 35-acre no-fishing zone that lies within the Channel Islands National Park, some 60 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

Outside the reserve, the picture changes. In some areas the kelp is gone, and with it the crowded house of life. Little purple sea urchins shine from almost bare rocks, a profusion of lavender flowers that bloom with a devastating beauty. They gobble up every young kelp plant, for no lobsters, horn sharks, or sheephead keep them in check. Yet these more barren waters are also protected, as part of both the 250,000-acre national park and a larger national marine sanctuary. But neither designation precludes one significant human activity: fishing.

The word wilderness brings to mind mountains, forests, plains, deserts. But kelp forest? Rocky bottom? Our concept of wilderness rarely extends to the oceans.

Now, however, the tide may be turning. At the Channel Islands, a network of much larger fishing-free reserves may be created-one of the first such efforts in the nation. The idea was kick-started by Jim Donlon, a crusty-voiced recreational fisherman who has watched the area's ocean life disappear over the past 50 years. Donlon blames the California legislature, since the state regulates coastal fisheries. "People should be put in jail for not taking care of a public resource," he fumes. In January 1999 his group, the Channel Islands Marine Resource Restoration Committee, asked the state to close at least 20 percent of the park's waters to fishing. Now state and federal agencies have engaged scientists, local residents, fishermen, and environmentalists to draw up a plan.

The Channel Islands are unusually thick with life because of an ocean upwelling that draws detritus from the depths, nourishing an army of plankton that turns the water a soupy green. The sumptuous food chain attracts whales and porpoises, seals and sea lions, seabirds, tourists, divers, and fishermen. This marine wealth was recognized in 1980, when the islands and their waters became a national park. A large reserve here, Donlon and others hope, would eventually replenish the surrounding fisheries as well. And if a marine reserve can succeed in the Channel Islands, where so much life converges, it may help us think differently about wilderness beneath the waves.

Kelp snails, with their vivid red foot, live and feed on giant kelp. They provide habitat for a snail called the slipper limpet, which attaches to the host animal's shell.

The teeth of the California horn shark are set in rows that rotate inward, moving prey along as a conveyor belt would. The front teeth grasp, while the back rows lie flat and grind. Horn sharks eat sea urchins and crustaceans, grinding away their spines and crushing their shells. The shark's curved nostril-flaps channel water into its nose so the shark can smell. The female lays a spiral egg case in which a single shark grows, nourished by yolk. After eight or nine months it wriggles out, a perfect six-inch replica of the two- to three-foot adult. In a confined space, without plentiful food, the shark will remain small, and scientists now worry about a new fad: the collection of young horn sharks for the home-aquarium trade.

Giant kelp plants wrap a rootlike holdfast firmly around rocks on the bottom and send out a central stipe that can grow 100 feet up and another 30 feet along the surface. Blades grow off the central stipe, each with an air bladder that helps keep the plant afloat. Like rainforests, kelp forests offer food and refuge to an array of species at every level, from the bottom to the canopy. Though kelp is sometimes torn up by winter storms, it regrows quickly-as much as 14 inches in a day.