Natural Perspectives:

I had a new crew of seven young men and women from the Orange County Conservation Corps out to the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve recently. For the work portion of our day, we removed non-native plants from the sand dune strip along Pacific Coast Highway south of the south parking lot.

The dunes were covered about 90% with non-natives when we started this project several years ago, then under a grant from the Southern California Wetlands Recovery Project. We have followed up periodically with orientation crews, who work at no charge to the sponsoring work site.

The dune strip now is covered about 60% with natives, mainly beach primrose and silvery beach bur. Native tarweed, telegraph weed, sand verbena, heliotrope, saltgrass and even threatened coast woolyheads have reappeared from dormant seed banks. All we needed to do was remove the non-natives such as iceplant and give nature a chance to revegetate with natives.

After our morning of non-native plant removal, we headed to the Bolsa Chica Conservancy for the educational aspect of our day. Our main task was to find food for the octopus that lives in the conservancy’s touch tank. We were asked to catch lined shore crabs to feed it.

I had tried in the past to catch crabs with my corps crews, using a crab trap baited with a chicken bone. We never had any success.

This time crew supervisor Javier Cabrera and I baited the trap with squid instead of chicken. I brought two bait squid that I had in my freezer at home. You wouldn’t believe what mysteries lurk in our freezer. Vic and I are biologists, and weird freezer contents come with the territory. You just never know when you’re going to need a dead squid.

Javier and I tied the squid inside the trap with string, suspending each squid just inside the two openings. The idea is that the crabs smell the bait and crawl into the conical opening to get at the food. They’re not supposed to find the tiny opening to get back out.

The crew took the trap to the water and dropped it in. The crabs began crawling out from hiding, dozens of them. I had never seen so many crabs. Clearly, squid made much better bait than chicken. In short order, my crew had caught a dozen lined shore crabs. We returned to the visitor center and dumped them into the touch tank.

Crabs become either exhibits or lunch, depending on the appetite of the octopus. Turned out the octopus was hungry that day. It devoured two crabs immediately, snaking its tentacles around in search of more. The surviving crabs crawled madly around the exterior, looking for a way out.

Vic had a recent crab encounter as well. He attended a lecture at the Bolsa Chica Conservancy on marine invertebrates given by Christine Whitcraft of Cal State Long Beach. I had wanted to attend also, but I came down with some icky virus about five days after my work at Bolsa Chica. Mosquitoes coming from a pond that is hidden from sight had swarmed my crew and me. I worried that I might have West Nile fever, as mosquitoes at Bolsa Chica have tested positive for the virus. Fortunately, I have recovered without developing either a high fever or encephalitis.

Vic reported the presence of this hidden pond to Orange County Vector Control so they can treat it with their natural insecticides. This biological control method kills mosquito larvae without harming butterfly larvae.

But I digress from the crabs. The professor pointed out a lined shore crab on the rocks, but noted that they’re too fast to catch. A lanky young man in flip-flops, whom Vic presumed was a graduate student, volunteered to catch it. The young man made a quick grab for the crab, and unfortunately for him, caught it. The first thing the crab did was defend itself by clamping onto the student’s finger.

That had to hurt. I know, because I stupidly caught a mid-sized red crab once to show students. I held it by the back of the carapace, telling students that it’s safe if you hold it right. The crab promptly proved me wrong by grabbing me with its pincher. I shrieked and shook it off. One of my students drolly observed that I must not have been holding it right. Wise guy.

Meanwhile, the student at Bolsa Chica was firmly in the grip of the lined shore crab. Vic said this lined shore crab was one of the largest ones that he had seen at Bolsa Chica. The professor told her hapless student that if he simply dangled the crab over the water, it would let go. The student held his hand out, and the crab grabbed another of his fingers with its other claw. I think I’ll stick to crab traps.

Sadly, this group of corps members was my last orientation crew to be able to work at Bolsa Chica at no cost. Due to the state budget cutbacks, the corps has lost a whopping 42% of its funding. Not only are we going to be hiring fewer corps members over the course of a year, we are no longer going to be able to take orientation crews out in the field at no cost to the sponsors at the work site. The Bolsa Chica has been a major recipient of these free work crews, along with Crystal Cove State Park, Audubon Starr Ranch and, in years past, Shipley Nature Center. It’s really sad to see this program end.

VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and environmentalists. They can be reached at [email protected] .