4 ms·
Are the local purple urchins edible?
by m-ee 6y ago
Are the local purple urchins edible?
- Ericson2314 6y agohttps://www.splendidtable.org/story/2018/07/26/why-we-should-be-eating-more-purple-sea-urchins https://www.splendidtable.org/story/2018/07/26/why-we-should... Perhaps yes, but I doubt that can undo the damage done without an overcorrection and more issues.
- dylan604 6y agoThis is the sad state of humans trying to help or fix mother nature. In almost every instance, the fix results in one of those "oh, didn't think of that" kind of things. I don't know the lady swallowed the dog to chase the cat to catch the bird to eat the spider to catch the fly. It's a literal nursery rhyme we teach kids.
- shkkmo 6y agoWhile that is true of trying to introduce new species to predate over-populated species (or really any novel species introduction), there is a long history of humans successfully managing their own predation to help balance over/under populated species. Obviously we have had failure in this area too but it we do know it is possible for us to do it and improve things.
- kortilla 6y agoSurvivorship bias, humans make corrective actions to local environments all of the time and there are no noticeable issues. When something goes wrong it’s news though.
- ironmagma 6y agoWe have minimal if any data about how many of the course corrections go well, precisely for that reason. However because we don’t know how many there are, it’s not accurate to claim to know it’s survivorship bias. It could be that, but it could not be. There’s not enough data to make a conclusion.
- intended 6y agoDisagree - ecologists are specifically categorized as wicked problems (as opposed to ‘tame’ problems like say chess) because they are complex and you never know where the fallout is going to be. We know if the disasters because we see them go wrong more often than not. Survivorship bias applies more to things like CEO success stories, startup success stories and sports personalities. A tiny fraction make it big, and these get studied/reported on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- nradov 6y agoTechnically yes some divers do eat them, but these aren't the same species of urchin that people typically eat as uni sushi. The gonads in purple urchins are so small that's it's hardly worth the effort of cleaning them.
- rcpt 6y agoYes I've taken some home from the beach and they're just fine. The eggs turn into ooze pretty quick so I don't know how viable they'd be commercially.
- pvaldes 6y agoWouldn't solve the problem necessarily. We need more experts and more resources in ecology to detect the main problems, otherwise we could be like a dog chasing its own tail. The problem can be predation, but also could be contamination, or just two degrees more in water temperature blocking the settlement of the tiny "kelpings".