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Sea urchins fed waste cabbage to spare Japan's seaweed forests

In Japan, scientists are feeding vegetables to hungry sea urchins a. popular sushi ingredient to try and stop them from eating. diminishing stocks of ocean seaweed.

The country is battling with a desertification of the. sea or isoyake problem, where the coastline faces a plain. decline in seaweed forests that host a varied range of marine. life and support the incomes of regional fishers.

In Sagami Bay off the coast of Kanagawa, just south of. Tokyo, the seaweed bed locations have reduced 80% over the past. three decades, according to Kanagawa Prefectural Fisheries. Innovation Center scientist Yutaka Harada.

Researchers think overgrazing by herbivore sea urchins is a. aspect behind the phenomenon, along with the possible impacts of. an increasing sea temperature and more powerful tidal waves. But. controlling the animal's population is not a simple task.

There are a lot of sea urchins in the locations where. seagrasses have vanished, said another Kanagawa scientist. Shozo Takamura. Divers and anglers dive down in their bathing. matches to gather and get rid of them, however their numbers have. barely fallen.

Unlike the urchins sold to high-end sushi bars, most sea. urchins in coastal Kanagawa do not have numerous edible parts,. making it less commercially viable for the fishers to keep. catching them.

But scientists are studying methods to support the creature. captured in Kanagawa.

The urchins we're raising here at the research centre,. which are Pacific purple sea urchins, truly love vegetables,. like surplus cabbages that are given to us and Japanese mustard. spinach, stated Harada.

Local sea urchins tend to have a paltry 2-3% edible parts,. but the lab-fed ones are as much as 20% edible, with less bitter. taste, he added.

The project's findings suggest the local urchins might end up being. more valuable, developing a larger financial incentive to capture. them, and sparing the remaining ocean seaweed.

We're working towards raising even more delicious sea urchins on. land and selling them to support our efforts against ocean. desertification, Harada said.

(source: Reuters)