Ocean Watch

Monday, July 8, 1996

Humans have decimated
pencil urchin population

LAST week, while taking an evening stroll down the outside pier of the Ala Wai Boat Harbor, I spotted a big yellow-and-white catamaran in the transient space. Wondering where it came from, I peeked around its stern to read its home port.

Nothing was written there. But what I did see in that boat's cockpit stopped me in my tracks. Disgusted, I turned to leave, then went back and looked again. Later, I brought a friend there and showed him the sight.

I couldn't stop thinking about these people's little collection, and as you can see, I am now even writing about it.

The "it" is this: Two exquisite, fully grown slate pencil urchins, dead as doornails, sat drying on the deck near some fins, masks and snorkels.

Some might argue that perhaps these folks found the urchins already dead on a beach and simply brought them aboard. I have trouble believing that. These urchins hide in cracks and crevices during the day, usually in wave-swept areas. At night, the animals leave their shelters and graze on algae. It's uncommon for these animals to just drop dead out in the open, then wash ashore fully intact.

More likely, some snorkeler from the boat thought they were pretty, dragged them from their shelters, then killed them by bringing them aboard.

When these urchins dry out more, they turn dark brown, the spines fall off and the whole thing stinks like mad. These sailors will end up with a pile of rotting flesh and drab calcium carbonate paddles for a trophy. Which, no doubt, they will then toss overboard.

OK, so I'm being shrill over a couple of sea urchins. But this kind of thoughtlessness gets my blood pressure up for several reasons. First, it's one of the things that gives boaters a bad name. These incidents stick in people's minds, then come up again when boaters ask for favors, such as additional mooring space.

Another reason this incident galls me is that this kind of destruction is so useless. No one wants to eat these animals, and they never cause anyone harm. Yet they are killed by the dozens.

One source says that slate pencil urchins were once common on most of Hawaii's reefs. Attracted to these animals' unique shape and color, reef visitors brought them ashore only to later discard them on the beach. The result, of course, is that these urchins are now scarce in all the areas readily accessible to humans.

In ancient Hawaii, people called these urchins punohu and used their spines as pencils. The rust-red color easily rubs off on rocks and slates.

Sea urchins may look like some sort of weird pincushions, but these living, breathing animals are intricate parts of healthy reef ecosystems. They deserve to live.