Kelp Beds

it's a gorgeous morning in santa monica bay surprise the silvery light blue and the ocean is blasting tom ford with the santa monica bay keeper voters his way into the gentlest wells point beach in malibu which is just east of mexico there is out there now but aerial photographs of the southern california coast show that over the last thirteen years there's been an eighty percent decline in the amount of visible surface board says that's not good for the state hundreds of animals will use the kelp beds to shelter or from some studies indicate that texas like many of those be microscopic but still humans also rely on toothpaste shampoo lotion all have a fair amount of help prevents the formation of a new

ford says the loss of kelp forests is partly due to storms and el ninos and well there hasn't been a lot of research scientists think a variety of human activities are also damaging the county got more silt and clay part of what the americans are and that sort of our coastal storm coming through that a lot from the bottom to the top of trying to grow other factors though maybe metals coming from our history and our transportation ford says fishing is another culprit it's moved the predators that the regions and other animals that gray zone we're looking at new cheaper than the lobster are so desired by us for our plates at dinnertime they're not getting enough water to keep your chest as we near escondido beach you can see small patches of snow it's not a continuous forest but the thirty foot long strands carving their way up to the light at the surface are impressive a harbor seal como beautiful there's a local marine mammal at

roosevelt thirds vote has lots of crabs as the tanker and set up for that guy tom ford gets help from two colleagues he checks a cooler filled with small steps of tile covered in what looks like a fuzzy slime it's at cal reading a lab on terminal island and they're a beautiful color nice golden brown and these guys are very small volver nature so yeah they can grow at a rate to feed a day when conditions are ideal and that that makes it the fastest growing out of it that we as scientists know ford and volunteer david journeys reason to wear suits wrapped in black neoprene from the tips of their toes to the top of their head and they look like a dark version of the blue man group based rapper more than seventy pounds of gear and lead weights that will help them seemed to the peaceful nature of her career

now jumping is next on a single bat flip the divers take the tiles and dissent leaving a trail of the clubs at the bottom for it and journey use nontoxic rubber band to strap the titles on to rocks eventually the cop should go off of the tiles and attach itself to the sea floor they also checks of the tiles they brought down in previous weeks ford says cal planted off the palace there is peninsula in the nineteen seventies is driving by kelp here face a bigger challenge getting a tall pole and that's because the rocky reef is shallower and more likely to be suffocated by settlement after an hour journey and for the service what grade is really a nice guy well neither are literally was a very large and well she fed viewers leahy is growing religion at feet and they are one of those of predators

that we had talked about these sort of short supplies of the cinema in addition to the work here environmental groups are also planting kelp off the coast of orange county your crystal cove as well as in san diego and ventura county is if it can secure funding the santa monica bay keeper hopes to fully restore the malibu kelp forest in the meantime the group is fighting urban runoff so that they will be safer for help and people for kpcc news i'm elsa set sail in malibu