How to Find, Clean and Eat FRESH UNI (Purple Sea Urchin) | Half Moon Bay 

Did you ever find any spots? I'm taking a fishing trip to Tomales in a month and thought it would be cool to add sea urchin to the menu!

Jai Gordon thanks for the info, Jai!

Totally! As you're walking to this particular spot, there is a sign near the parking lot that depicts where the marine reserve area begins. All of the foragers, etc stay on the 'fair game' side of this line, as it's pretty well defined. At other spots, these borders can sometimes be less clear, which is why it's super important to do research and search on Google maps before heading to a location. At HMB, there are typically game wardens walking around to ensure the laws are being abided by.

@@Tackleboys Thank you for sharing. I remember being in that area on a school field trip some 28 years ago and remember one of my teachers saying that we were going to enter a reserve and were not supposed to disturb the marine life. Glad to know that the game wardens are out there to make sure the laws are being abided by.

Is that poisonous??

Any glove does work, you can grab them in normal neoprene dive gloves, but the spines will tear up softer materials and your gloves will be gone in a couple dives. It's best to have tougher gloves mostly so they'll last longer. You don't really have to worry about the spines punching through gloves. If that happens you're doing something very wrong

you have to read the tide charts - it constantly changes.

I've heard you can harvest uni all year round (only spawning will affect yield, so fall is the prime time to harvest) and sea urchins are not bivalve like oysters or mussels, so they don't filter the ocean and therefore you're not eating their filtered garbage.

I have the same question

Go past Pacifica and the beach where u can see the Doppler tower

Thanks! noted :)

U can go there anytime between 3-5 pm

@@scottyngo2635 hi! do you know where is the location? I heard Pillar point? does it have to be negative tides?

@@hanp.4450 search up pillar point tide pools parking lot. The tide pool is locate below the cliff. It better to go out at negative tide so you can walk longer distance into the ocean floor.

@@scottyngo2635 thanks!!!

Can you please send additional information on this? California game wardens encourage folks to harvest sea urchins.. in fact the daily limit is 40 gallons (8, 5 gallon buckets). Sea Urchins, while native tend to take over marine and tide pool ecosystems, so I've been told foraging for them is actually beneficial to the ecosystem.

@@Tackleboys The problem is not necessarily harvesting the sea urchins (I disagree that foraging is beneficial to the ecosystem. It is only beneficial because we killed off their native predator, sea otters, along most of the American Pacific coast). It's people coming to these areas en masse after seeing social media posts and trampling other wildlife or harvesting species other than the urchins. LA Times did a piece on this not long ago. www.latimes.com/environment/story/2020-07-17/unprecedented-crowds-are-harvesting-sea-creatures-from-san-pedros-famous-tide-pools

@@TL-ms6lp Ah I see, thanks for sharing. The area I visited is public access and well known for this sort of activity, it is also next to hundreds of miles of protected coastline and tidal pools and is frequented by game wardens. They're careful to teach visitors proper etiquette but I see what you're saying, there are some unintended consequences of foraging. It's definitely a value judgement on whether or not it's justified but one of the costs of preservation and conversation is allowing folks to see and experience the wildlife we care about. If I make another video, I will be sure to speak to this!

@@Tackleboys Well, it's true those pesky urchin are killing off the abalones. However, with hundreds of people stomping the tide pool, that is where the damage is at. Perhaps, these type of outings you should keep it to yourself instead of spreading it like wildfire for those who are looking for a easy pickings.