A magical world at the ocean’s edge

Summary

Unexplainable Podcast Episode Summary: "A Magical World at the Ocean’s Edge"

Release Date: July 2, 2025 Host/Author: Vox (Bird Pinkerton)

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Introduction: Exploring the Enchanted Tide Pools

The episode titled "A Magical World at the Ocean’s Edge" delves into the intricate and mesmerizing ecosystems of California's tide pools. Hosted by Bird Pinkerton, the show features insightful conversations with Rebecca Johnson, the Director of the Center for Biodiversity and Community Science at the California Academy of Sciences, and Peter Rutenrein, a paleontologist studying ancient ecosystems.

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Tide Pool Exploration: A Window into Marine Diversity

Bird Pinkerton opens the episode at the California Academy of Sciences, surrounded by the serene beauty of early morning tide pools. Accompanied by Rebecca Johnson and fellow researcher Allison Young, Bird explores the vibrant life forms inhabiting these rocky intertidal zones.

Notable Discussion:

• Bird Pinkerton (01:06): Describes the setting at the California Academy of Sciences and the anticipation of meeting Rebecca Johnson.
• Rebecca Johnson (01:46): Shares her connection to wildflowers, symbolizing her deep appreciation for natural ecosystems.
• Field Guide (01:50): Introduces the exploration of Pillar Point Reef, highlighting its scenic beauty and biodiversity at low tide.

Key Highlights:

• Biodiversity: The tide pools are teeming with diverse life forms, including nudibranchs, sea slugs, sponges, and various algae species.
• Environmental Conditions: The unique conditions of low tide reveal hidden marine life, creating a "magical" experience for observers.

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Threats to Tide Pool Ecosystems: Wasting and Warming Waters

Rebecca Johnson expresses concern over the sudden disappearance of sea stars due to a phenomenon known as sea star wasting disease. This event is linked to a marine heatwave that began a decade ago, dramatically altering the balance of the ecosystem.

Notable Quotes:

• Rebecca Johnson (10:03): "The story really started about a decade ago, around the time when a wave of marine heat spread up the California coast."
• Field Guide (11:02): Describes the alarming decline in starfish populations due to white lesions and disintegration.

Key Points:

• Sea Star Wasting Disease: Affected numerous species across a vast geographic area, causing massive declines in sea star populations.
• Impact of Marine Heatwaves: Elevated water temperatures stressed marine life, exacerbating the effects of diseases and disrupting ecosystem balance.
• Ecosystem Consequences: The loss of predators like the sunflower sea star led to an overabundance of grazers such as purple sea urchins, which in turn devastated kelp forests.

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Kelp Forests and Ecosystem Balance

The discussion shifts to the broader implications of disrupted ecosystems, particularly focusing on California's kelp forests. The balance between grazers (urchins) and their predators (sunflower sea stars) is crucial for maintaining healthy kelp ecosystems.

Notable Quotes:

• Rebecca Johnson (17:29): "Sunflower stars are amazing. I mean, they're gigantic. Imagine it's like as big as, like a car hubcap."
• Field Guide (18:09): Explains how the decline of sunflower stars led to unchecked sea urchin populations, resulting in kelp forest degradation.

Key Insights:

• Sunflower Sea Stars: Once pivotal in controlling sea urchin populations, their decline has led to ecological imbalances.
• Urchin Barrens: Overpopulation of urchins has transformed rich kelp forests into barren landscapes devoid of kelp.
• Ecosystem Resilience: While some tide pool species have rebounded, kelp forests have not. Rebecca Johnson expresses concerns about ongoing changes threatening tide pool stability.

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Research and Resilience: Understanding and Mitigating Changes

Peter Rutenrein provides a paleontological perspective, emphasizing the longevity and adaptability of ecosystems. He draws parallels between ancient and modern ecosystems, highlighting factors that contribute to their persistence or collapse.

Notable Quotes:

• Peter Rutenrein (22:09): "If you look in the fossil record, one of the things that's really remarkable is that ecosystems can last a very long time, millions of years."
• Rebecca Johnson (21:55): Discusses the challenges of predicting ecosystem futures due to the complexity of marine environments.

Key Discussions:

• Ecosystem Stability: Despite species turnover, ecosystems can remain stable over millions of years unless faced with catastrophic events.
• Modern Challenges: Current rapid changes, such as climate-induced warming and acidification, pose unprecedented threats that complicate ecosystem resilience.
• Hope Amid Uncertainty: Both Rebecca and Peter express cautious optimism, emphasizing the importance of continued research and conservation efforts.

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Community Involvement and Citizen Science

Rebecca Johnson highlights the role of community science in monitoring and preserving tide pool ecosystems. Platforms like iNaturalist allow enthusiasts to document and share observations, aiding researchers in tracking ecological changes.

Notable Quotes:

• Rebecca Johnson (26:31): "Inaturalist basically lets people ID Plants and animals. So anyone who goes to the tide pools can upload all the life forms they see and those photos with locations and timestamps."
• Field Guide (27:18): Emphasizes the importance of public engagement in conservation efforts.

Key Points:

• Data Collection: Citizen scientists contribute valuable data that help model ecosystem changes and identify potential threats early.
• Collaborative Efforts: Large-scale programs aim to restore critical species like the sunflower sea star and manage urchin populations to protect kelp forests.
• Education and Awareness: Engaging the public fosters a deeper appreciation and understanding of marine ecosystems, encouraging stewardship and proactive conservation.

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Personal Reflections: Finding Joy and Purpose in Conservation

Throughout the episode, Bird Pinkerton shares personal anecdotes and reflections on the beauty and fragility of marine ecosystems. The narrative underscores the emotional and psychological connections humans have with natural environments.

Notable Quotes:

• Bird Pinkerton (28:04): "Walking around with Rebecca, I felt the way I felt as a kid, just happy to be alive and outside."
• Rebecca Johnson (27:52): "You have to have joy and you have to just still have this quest to understand how things work and how things are changing."

Themes:

• Emotional Connection: The host's and guests' love for tide pools fuels their dedication to studying and protecting these ecosystems.
• Joy in Nature: Despite the challenges, finding joy in nature provides motivation and solace in the face of environmental uncertainty.
• Active Engagement: The episode encourages listeners to engage with and contribute to conservation efforts, fostering a sense of responsibility and hope.

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Conclusion: Hope and Ongoing Efforts

The episode concludes on a hopeful note, emphasizing the importance of collective action and continued research in safeguarding marine ecosystems. Rebecca Johnson and Peter Rutenrein highlight ongoing projects and the critical role of community involvement in driving positive change.

Notable Quotes:

• Rebecca Johnson (27:30): "We can still explore the tide pools and share them with each other."
• Field Guide (30:50): Highlights the resilience and enduring beauty of tide pools amidst climate change.

Final Takeaways:

• Ecosystem Interdependence: The health of tide pools is intricately linked to broader marine ecosystems, necessitating comprehensive conservation strategies.
• Adaptive Management: Innovative approaches, such as captive breeding and community science initiatives, offer pathways to restore and maintain ecological balance.
• Continued Vigilance: Ongoing monitoring and adaptive research are essential to anticipate and mitigate future threats to marine biodiversity.

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Supporting Efforts and Further Engagement Listeners are encouraged to contribute to Rebecca Johnson's iNaturalist project, "Snapshot Cal Coast," to aid in monitoring and preserving tide pool ecosystems. The episode credits various contributors and emphasizes the importance of community support and involvement in conservation initiatives.

Call to Action:

• Join Community Science: Participate in documenting marine life through platforms like iNaturalist.
• Support Conservation Projects: Engage with and support initiatives aimed at restoring and maintaining marine ecosystems.
• Spread Awareness: Share the importance of marine biodiversity and the challenges it faces with others to foster a collective effort in preservation.

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This detailed summary encapsulates the essence of the "A Magical World at the Ocean’s Edge" episode, providing a comprehensive overview for those who have not listened while preserving the insightful discussions and emotional depth conveyed by the host and guests.

Transcript

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[Bird Pinkerton]

All right. I am at the California Academy of Sciences. That is in the middle of the park. So I'm surrounded by trees that are, I guess, evergreens. I can't really see because it is 5:04am full moon, not particularly overcast. I think that Rebecca might be here. We will see again. It's normally Rebecca. She is a bumper sticker that says.

[Rebecca Johnson]

I break for wildflowers.

[Bird Pinkerton]

Morning.

[Peter Rutenrein]

Hi.

[Field Guide]

Good morning.

[Rebecca Johnson]

It's nice to see you in person. It's so nice to see you in person.

[Bird Pinkerton]

How are you?

[Rebecca Johnson]

Thank you for driving me out.

[Field Guide]

Thanks for getting out so early. Okay, so I'll take you kind of to my favorite rocky intertidal reef, which is called Pillar Point Reef.

[Bird Pinkerton]

Oh, wait. This is so beautiful.

[Field Guide]

Which is in San Mateo county, south of San Francisco about 45 minutes. This is the Pillar Point marsh. And you can see into the bay and yeah, I often am there at like five in the morning. Kind of beautiful foggy light.

[Bird Pinkerton]

Wow. Well, well, well.

[Field Guide]

When you walk out to Pillar Point, you have to walk about a half mile like along a dirt road and you pass like a little harbor. It's on a harbor.

[Bird Pinkerton]

Are those seagulls or pelicans?

[Field Guide]

I think there was some, yeah. And so there are like mud flats and like other little parts that you have to keep on walking. And as you turn west, you just see this like, oh, wow, huge beach with this huge expanse of kind of flat. It looks like flat, rocky, seaweed covered area. There's some big rocks off to the west called Sail Rock. You can see that one looks like A sail a little bit.

[Bird Pinkerton]

The white.

[Field Guide]

White one. Iguan.

[Bird Pinkerton]

All right.

[Rebecca Johnson]

Should we go in?

[Field Guide]

We'll go further. When you go tide pooling, and especially if you're going as the tide is dropping, like, you want to go out as far as you can then and not get distracted by all the little stuff that you see as you're walking out.

[Bird Pinkerton]

What?

[Field Guide]

But I always tell people this, but I always break my own rule, and I get distracted.

[Rebecca Johnson]

Oh, and it's moving.

[Field Guide]

It's amazing.

[Rebecca Johnson]

Oh, it's so cool. So this is this white. It looks like a little daddy long legs.

[Field Guide]

Yeah, it's like the daddy long legs.

[Rebecca Johnson]

But it, like, it has these tiny little white arms that are, like, dancing and contorting.

[Field Guide]

You head out onto the rocky reef, and as you head out there, you know, it's of kind covered with algae, like seaweeds. All different species of seaweeds. There are some that are big and fleshy and iridescent, and there are some that are, like, little. I don't know, they look like little scouring pads. And then at Pillar Point, especially in the spring and summer, there's this one species that's called sea sacion or sea sacs. And it looks like tiny little fingers of a glove, like, puffed up, but they're green. Stepped on one sometimes you pop some of them, but it's okay. Like, you just keep walking. You know, as you're walking, you are walking on seaweeds and animals. You just have to be really careful. I mean, as you just keep walking, it kind of gets more and more, like, deeper pools, more habitat.

[Rebecca Johnson]

Ooh.

[Bird Pinkerton]

What is this?

[Field Guide]

Oh, that's a slug out of the water.

[Rebecca Johnson]

It's so orange.

[Field Guide]

And then my favorite place at Pillar Point is this place that we call the nudibranch pool.

[Rebecca Johnson]

Oh, wait, there's two nudibranchs, I think.

[Field Guide]

And you'll see little nudibranch or sea slugs.

[Rebecca Johnson]

Oh, wow.

[Field Guide]

Kind of crawling along.

[Rebecca Johnson]

It's the pink one.

[Field Guide]

Is it really?

[Rebecca Johnson]

Yes. So pink.

[Field Guide]

And if you're, like, still and careful, you might see third one and the third one right there. Four different species. Five different species, just like in that one spot.

[Rebecca Johnson]

Fourth one.

[Field Guide]

Wait.

[Rebecca Johnson]

Fifth one. Exactly.

[Bird Pinkerton]

Oh, my God.

[Field Guide]

They're just everywhere. It's just like, oh, my God, these colors, right? They're like pink sponges and tunicates and amphipods. There's a thing called an octocoril that's bright pink.

[Bird Pinkerton]

I feel like I'm seeing all these celebrities.

[Field Guide]

So it's just like this, like, mosaic of colors and worms and other things, and it's all right there.

[Bird Pinkerton]

Oh.

[Field Guide]

So for me, it's just like this place that you don't have. You can just stand there and you can see so many different things without even really looking that hard.

[Rebecca Johnson]

Well, thank you, Pillar Point.

[Bird Pinkerton]

Appreciate it.

[Rebecca Johnson]

Okay.

[Bird Pinkerton]

Be very careful not to step on anything as I move.

[Rebecca Johnson]

The first time I ever went tide pooling, I was maybe 10 or 11 at a summer camp. We woke up at 4am Crawled out of our sleeping bags, pulled on, like, two pairs of jeans so one over the other and these thick wool socks before hiking out to a little rocky cove. And when we got there, the tide was way out and still receding, actually. And in its wake, it had exposed this whole world of rocky pools, which is what a tide pool is, right? A little pool of water full of creatures that are normally hidden away beneath the waves. And as we scrabbled out over these slippery rocks to the to explore and look and touch, I remember being cold and wet and completely enchanted. It was like realizing that magic was real. Rebecca Johnson gets it.

[Field Guide]

It's magical in so many different ways. Because if, okay, I'm standing at this nudibranch pool at, like, six in the morning now on some, like, foggy Thursday, you know, another day, 12 hours or six hours later, I would be underwater. Like, I wouldn't be able to see any of that. So you also have to go at the right time. If you go a different time, it's still a beautiful beach, and there's Sandy, you know, but you won't see any of that. It's completely hidden to you. So it's like you get this little peek, this little, like, window, and that's one of the things I love the most about it.

[Rebecca Johnson]

Rebecca is the only person I've ever met who's arguably more gone for tide pools than I am. She is the director of the center for Biodiversity and Community Science at the California Academy of Sciences, and she's been studying tide pools for decades. The spot that she took me to, Pillar Point, she has been visiting it for around 30 years.

[Field Guide]

I mean, it's one of the places in the world that you can, like, at a low tide, walk out onto a rocky reef and see, like, hundreds of species of invertebrates all really, really concentrated.

[Rebecca Johnson]

But the reason I'm here talking to Rebecca and exploring tide pools with her is that this enchanted place is at risk. Like so many ecosystems around the world, it is being hit by a lot of different changes all at once. I wanted to understand what those changes Meant, Right. And how researchers like Rebecca figure out what the future of an ecosystem might look like. But I also wanted to understand how they deal with the possibility that that future might be grim. These tide pools are part of the reason I am a science reporter. They were part of my realization that science fact is as amazing as any science fiction. And so this is unexplainable. I'm Bird Pinkerton, and today on the show, I talk to someone who loves these tide pools as much as I do to try and understand how to process a rapidly changing world.

[Field Guide]

Oh, my gosh. Okay, so what is the story for Rebecca?

[Rebecca Johnson]

The story really started about a decade ago, around the time when a wave of marine heat spread up the California coast. And then just kind of stuck around for a while.

[Field Guide]

You know, we have programs that we have been running for years then that brought people to the tide pools to make and share observations of all the different things they saw.

[Bird Pinkerton]

And.

[Field Guide]

And they started seeing some changes.

[Rebecca Johnson]

They started seeing a lot more of one particular animal, this sea slug called the Hopkins rose nudibranch.

[Field Guide]

It looks like a little. I don't even know, like, a little koosh ball, you know, those little koosh balls, but bright pink.

[Rebecca Johnson]

These pink sea slugs aren't usually all that common at these tide pools that Rebecca studies. But when the warm water came, it.

[Field Guide]

Became, like, the most common thing. They used, like, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds on the reef.

[Rebecca Johnson]

And that wasn't the only weird thing that was happening. Even before the heat wave really hit, other disturbing reports had started coming in from up and down the coast.

[Field Guide]

People that were diving in Washington state and further north and some places in California started reporting this, like, weird thing that they were seeing in starfish. They were seeing white lesions on starfishes, and they were seeing not only these white lesions, but they were seeing the starfish kind of, like, disintegrate in front of them. Like, they would see it one day with these lesions, they come back the next day, and it was, like, almost dissolved and then almost gone. So people started to see this and started report it and document it. And a lot of it was documented by amateur divers, and then it was reported by scientists who went out to try to verify this. And very quickly, it was pretty apparent that this sickness, whatever it was, was in lots and lots of species along a huge stretch of coast.

[Rebecca Johnson]

Wasting isn't unheard of in sea stars. It does happen, but it doesn't usually happen to so many different species in such a huge geographical area all at the same time. The exact cause was Hard to pin down. There were a lot of theories, and one researcher told me that they actually only recently figured out the infectious agent that was probably involved. But scientists also drew a connection to the warm water, saying the stress of the heat could have made things worse. Ultimately, though, huge numbers of sea stars wasted away. Some places lost over 90% of their stars. And the spot that Rebecca has been visiting for decades, Pillar Point, that was hit hard, too. At one point, she decided to drive out for a visit.

[Field Guide]

My colleague Allison Young and I, we were like, okay, like, this is a pretty good low tide. Look, let's just go see what we can see. And we went out to Pillar Point, and there were no starfish. It was just, like, the most bizarre feeling. I was still at this place that was, like, spectacularly beautiful, covered with algae, covered with seaweeds. All these other invertebrates are there, but, like, there's just something kind of off about it. It's like going to a familiar place and something being wrong. You know, it's like going into your room if somebody had, like, moved your stuff, like, all slightly, right, and you're like, what's wrong with this room? Right? So it has that. It had that has that, like, disconcerting, like, unsettling feeling. And for us, I mean, at that moment when we saw all these stars that had disappeared, like, we didn't know what was going to happen. And they, like, play this huge role in maintaining these ecosystems. And so to have them just gone, it was this moment of, like, really deep uncertainty.

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[Bird Pinkerton]

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[Bird Pinkerton]

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[Rebecca Johnson]

When Rebecca looked out at her familiar tide pools and saw that the sea stars were mostly missing, she was worried because she thought a big change like this might throw that tide pool ecosystem she loved out of balance. And that was, it turns out, a pretty reasonable concern because it is exactly what happened to another ecosystem, one that is not very far away, distance wise, from some California tide pools, but can seem like kind of a different planet almost. To get there, you have to move a little ways beyond the rocky intertidal into water that's maybe 50 to 100ft deep. And that's where you can find the California kelp forests. Imagine if you would, golden brown kelp. It can be massive, sometimes 100ft tall. And these are called kelp forests for a reason. Ideally, they're sort of lots of kelp growing together like trees, almost with sunlight kind of filtering through them in green and gold. Also, like a forest, these places are full of a huge diversity of animals. So in this case, everything from sea lions to octopus to abalone. Now, on land, in a forest, right, you have gracers, herbivores like deer, and you have predators like wolves that eat those deer. So a herd of hungry deer can decimate trees and undergrowth by eating everything. But some wolves can keep them in check, right, and keep the ecosystem healthy and balanced. The same is true for the California kelp forests. They have grazers, animals like the purple sea urchin, which is a spiky purple pin cushion that eats a lot of kelp. And then they have a very important wolf that keeps the pin cushions in check, which is this species of sea star known as the sunflower. Sea star.

[Field Guide]

Sunflower stars are amazing. I mean, they're gigantic. Imagine it's like as big as, like a car hubcap.

[Rebecca Johnson]

Maybe. The ones I saw as a kid were so big you had to hold them with two hands.

[Field Guide]

They have tons of arms like 20 in the 20s, 22, 24. Some people think that they can like count them and there's consistency, but I'm actually not sure. They're really beautifully colored. Like they have a lot of variation, but they're generally like purpley with some pinks, sometimes a little more orange. And they are voracious predators. They eat tons of stuff and they're pretty indiscriminate. Like they eat lots of different things.

[Rebecca Johnson]

Including grazers, like urchins. But because they're sea stars, they also fell victim to that sea star wasting sickness that I told you about. In fact, they were one of the hardest hit species.

[Field Guide]

This lack of the sunflower star in the kelp forest, especially in northern California, along with the warming waters, because, remember, we have warming waters, right, Led to the increase of urchins. And the urchins then ate all the kelp. And the warming water didn't help kelp because kelp don't really want warmer water. So in many places you have these urchin barrens where it's like mostly urchins. We lost a lot of kelp forests along the northern California coast.

[Rebecca Johnson]

The transformation from dense, diverse kelp forests to urchin barrens is just one example of what can happen when things get out of balance in an ecosystem. So again, it makes sense that Rebecca was worried when she noticed that the stars were missing from her tide pools all those years ago. She didn't know exactly what could happen, but she was afraid that such a big change could have real consequences for the tide pools. Ultimately, though, while some species, like the sunflower sea stars, have not bounced back in California, other species, like bat stars and leather stars and ochre stars, they have made a comeback. And the tide pools have not met the same fate as so many of the California kelp forests. Right? They have not been turned into some equivalent of urchin barrens. What worries Rebecca is that as more things change, something else might disrupt the tide pool's balance. She's worried, for example, about the hungry, hungry grazers that have gobbled up the kelp forests. They still need something to eat. And she says that she's been seeing more of them coming into the tide pools.

[Field Guide]

They've come into the inner tidal and they're eating their, like, you know, not first choice food, but they're eating the kelp, the inner tidal kelps that could.

[Rebecca Johnson]

Affect the ecosystems there. And meanwhile, temperatures are still warming over time. So tide pool ecosystems are still changing, which is having its own effects.

[Field Guide]

Things are shifting. Their ranges, like ranges are moving north. We don't actually know what happens when they move north. You know, we don't know exactly what those changes will lead to for nudibranch, for cnmes, for sponges, for other encrusting things, like, we just don't know all the, like, downstream effects of that.

[Rebecca Johnson]

Part of Rebecca's job is predicting what comes next for these ecosystems. But that's hard, right? It's hard because it's hard to nail down cause and effect in the ocean. It's hard to tease out exactly what the effects of the marine heat wave were or what the effects of ocean acidification are, or sea star wasting or changes in predators, or any number of different factors that can potentially shake up an ecosystem. But also it's hard to make sense of how big a deal any given change might be, right? These ecosystems have bounced back from some pretty big blows in the past. Like fur traders wiped out Steller's sea cows, which is a species that helped shape the kelp forests. And then sea otters, an important predator. They were also hunted close to extinction. Things like sea star wasting and heat waves have also happened before. So sometimes stuff big or small, just changes, you know. And how do you know what changes might be? Okay, ultimately, that's a good question.

[Peter Rutenrein]

And I've spent a lot of my career studying exactly that. And literally what I study is the question of why do ecosystems persist as long as they do.

[Rebecca Johnson]

I met up with Peter Rutenrein in his office full of bookshelves and fossilized shells. He is a paleontologist at the Cal Academy of Sciences who studies how ancient ecosystems were affected by things like dramatic climate change. He's trying to figure out how that might relate to ecosystems today.

[Peter Rutenrein]

If you look in the fossil record, one of the things that's really remarkable is that ecosystems can last a very long time, millions of years. Species will come and go in those ecosystems. But what makes ecosystems so, the types of species or what they do, who they do it to and so on, that doesn't change. That can last for millions of years.

[Rebecca Johnson]

It's kind of like a baseball team. The team's always going to need pitchers and shortstops and outfielders, but a specific pitcher can retire.

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This sea otter is leaving Northern California.

[Field Guide]

Because it's been hunted almost to extinction.

[Rebecca Johnson]

The team might hire another pitcher or just have one of their other star pitchers step up.

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The sunflower sea star will be taking over more of the pitching look out for its famous five armed curveball.

[Rebecca Johnson]

But Peter's research also looks at the moments when ecosystem teams fall Apart, they.

[Peter Rutenrein]

Do eventually come to an end.

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[Peter Rutenrein]

They tend to come to an end during major events in Earth's, Earth's dynamic. So things like volcanism, you know, the size of Siberia, an asteroid hitting the planet, you know, really extreme, extreme changes.

[Rebecca Johnson]

Too many changes, and you just can't play baseball anymore. So Peter can't know exactly what the future holds for California's tide pools or its kelp forests or any marine ecosystem, but he is worried.

[Peter Rutenrein]

You know, the thing that many of us lose sleep over is that, yes, these things that we love, we treasure, we could be staring down the barrel of changes that we're not really imagining yet. And as you pointed out, I mean, the world is different. My world, I grew up. I'm from the Caribbean and I grew up there loving the ocean. I still remember my first time on a reef. I was really little and it blew my mind, and I think it changed me forever. So I share that experience with you. But my parents, you know, my mom was from Jamaica, my dad was from Trinidad. They described things that I never saw. And so that's interesting. That's always been a little bit disturbing, but there's still beauty out there. And now these days, I just wonder, well, you know, we can still find beauty in a kelp forest that has too many urchins and no sea cows. We still find them beautiful. We get that sense from them. How long is that going to persist? I think that's a. That's a question that everybody should be asking themselves very seriously, because I've only very recently come to the answer that, yes, I do think we're looking at potential endpoint for some of these systems.

[Rebecca Johnson]

And yet he keeps doing his research, hoping that it will be helpful, and so does Rebecca.

[Field Guide]

I wouldn't be out here if I didn't have hope that, like, what we're doing can make a difference.

[Rebecca Johnson]

There are lots of people who are still trying to do something. There is a collaborative large scale program to try and rear sunflower sea stars in captivity and potentially reintroduce them to the ecosystem and restore a baseball star. The California state government has partnered with nonprofits and code commercial fishermen to try and clear urchins and restore kelp. There are researchers studying the genomes of sea stars that did recover from sea star wasting to see what could be learned about what made them resilient. And Rebecca has projects with a community science app called Inaturalist.

[Field Guide]

I don't know if you know about Inaturalist.

[Rebecca Johnson]

It basically lets people ID Plants and animals. So anyone who goes to the tide pools can upload all the life forms they see and those photos with locations and timestamps. They can help Rebecca and her team figure out how populations are changing or model the future of this ecosystem and even potentially serve as a warning system if there are big die offs again, so scientists can try and intervene earlier. As one researcher told me, no one person can protect marine ecosystems alone. But she at least takes heart in all the different people contributing to the effort. And Rebecca, for her part, wants to get as many people excited about the tide pools as she can.

[Field Guide]

You're like, okay, well here I am. How can I enjoy this place? Teach other people about this place, Bring people to this place so they love it and they have bear witness to that change.

[Rebecca Johnson]

She brought me to her favorite place, filler point, to show me the nudibranch pool and the brittle stars and a clam that squirted a massive stream of water right at me. Just treasure after treasure.

[Field Guide]

Not a rock. But look.

[Rebecca Johnson]

Wait, you. It's not a rock.

[Field Guide]

It's a sponge.

[Rebecca Johnson]

It's a sponge.

[Field Guide]

You feel looks like a rock. I wish people.

[Rebecca Johnson]

And when we spotted other tide pools coolers, Rebecca brought over some neuter branch to show them too.

[Field Guide]

I couldn't resist picking them up to show you. They're amazing. So this is them out of water. They're sea slugs.

[Ad Sponsor]

Spectacular.

[Rebecca Johnson]

That's gorgeous. Walking around with Rebecca, I felt the way I felt as a kid, just happy to be alive and outside.

[Field Guide]

There's also a great blue heron hunting. Do you see it?

[Bird Pinkerton]

It's like straight ahead.

[Ad Sponsor]

Yeah.

[Rebecca Johnson]

It made me realize that right now there are still brightly colored sea slugs off the coast of California. But also we got some snails. There are still crabs and clams and urchins and sea stars and we can still hold them in our hands. Oh, like there's these tiny, tiny shells, like iridescent shells, and we've been just like walking across them.

[Field Guide]

Yeah, Walking right over it.

[Rebecca Johnson]

You can still explore the tide pools and share them with each other.

[Field Guide]

In the midst of climate change and like a future that is going to be hotter and harder and more difficult for people. Like, you have to have joy and you have to just still have this quest to understand how things work and how things are changing and also being like, hey, what, what are the things we can do? What are the things that we have control over? Like, I struggle with it. I feel like marine systems especially are like pretty complicated to think about, restoring, to think about. Like, what do you actually do out here. How do you protect the things? But that's just like you can't stop doing that cuz then you've kind of lost everything.

[Rebecca Johnson]

Okay. I promised my editor that I would sit and think about the tide pools for a few minutes. So I'm going to sit and.

[Bird Pinkerton]

I'm.

[Rebecca Johnson]

Going to sit and think.

[Bird Pinkerton]

It's closer to 8:30, the sun has come up completely. But like the weather is kind of gray and I'm just sitting on like a rock that's sort of covered in.

[Rebecca Johnson]

Iridescent algae, which is literally its name.

[Bird Pinkerton]

But also it is quite iridescent. So when I.

[Rebecca Johnson]

Okay.

[Bird Pinkerton]

The camp I would go to every year, the camp that actually brought me out here was.

[Rebecca Johnson]

Kind of granola. Like we would sing. We would sing a lot of songs around the campfire, like old classics.

[Bird Pinkerton]

And there's a song that I feel like keeps coming to mind as I work on this story, which is a song about like loving crawdads. And like you go fishing for crawdads and everyone loves crawdads. And then at the end of the song it just makes a sudden shift where they're suddenly singing about like, what are you gonna do when the lake goes dry? And the song repeats. It goes, what are you gonna do when the lake goes dry? What are you gonna do when the lake goes dry? What are you gonna do when the lake goes dry? Sit on the bank and watch the crawdads die. What are you gonna do when the crawdads die? What are you gonna do when the crawdads die? What are you gonna do when the crawdads die? Sit on the cry. I don't know. As a kid I was always like, what the heck are these verses? Like, this is such a fun song. And now it's so sad. And now I'm just really glad those verses are in there because. Yeah, I don't know. This is such a fun song.

[Rebecca Johnson]

But.

[Bird Pinkerton]

It'S also a little sad. Anyway, I found a hermit crab.

[Rebecca Johnson]

Rebecca, look at this hermit crab.

[Bird Pinkerton]

Like, look at this shell.

[Field Guide]

Oh my gosh, this shell is amazing.

[Rebecca Johnson]

What kind of shell is that?

[Field Guide]

I think it's an epitonium, it's called. It's all covered with coral and algae, so it would be.

[Rebecca Johnson]

Oh, that's why it's like.

[Bird Pinkerton]

That.

[Peter Rutenrein]

3.

[Bird Pinkerton]

But I. What you going to do when you lay go.

[Rebecca Johnson]

If you want to contribute to Rebecca's inaturalist project, please look up Snapshot Cal Coast. We will link to that in the description as well. Meanwhile, this episode was produced by Me Bird Pinkerton. It was edited by Jorge Just with help from Meredith Hodnot, Matt Collette and Paige Vega. Noam Hassenfeld made the music. Christian Ayala did the mixing and the sound design. Kim Slaughterback checked our facts. Julia Longoria is the fact that some frogs have little spade like feet that helped them burrow and I am always always always always grateful to Brian Resnick for co creating the show. Thanks also to Drew Harvell, Ashley Kidd, Lauren Shieblehut, Kylie Lev, Nat Lowe and Chloe Davis for taking the time to speak with me for this story. Thanks to Megan Ehle for all her help in organizing things. And thank you forever to the late, great Michael Rossman and to Lee Temkin who changed my life. The 1939 recording of the Crawdad Song that you heard was from the American Folklife Center. If you have an ecosystem that you love someplace in the world that makes you happy to be alive, please tell us about it. Tell us why you love it. Tell us if it's changing. Write in, send us a recording of it if you can. We are@ unexplainableox.com if you want to support the show and help us keep making it, please join our membership program that [e-mail] members. You can get ad free podcasts among other perks, and you also get unlimited access to Vox Journalism. Also, if you sign up because you love Unexplainable, please tell our bosses they love that for us. You can also support us by leaving us a nice review, perhaps on your podcast platform of choice or a rating, or just by telling people in your life to listen. Unexplainable is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network and we're off next week for the holiday, but we'll be back in your feed on July 14th. Sam.