Sea Urchin Season

This project is enlisting people of all ages and backgrounds to collect breeding data about sea urchins. Gulf Specimen Marine Lab is utilizing citizen science to encourage people to become more involved in their community and environment. The goal of this project is to determine when sea urchins are the most likely to become gravid, meaning that they can make more sea urchins.

As a citizen scientist, you will meet at the Gulf Specimen Marine Lab and be given a sea urchin embryology kit, and test to see if urchins are gravid. You will be collecting urchins and identifying the species, then you will perform the experiment to see if they are gravid. With this project, volunteers will learn how to record observational data, perform experiments and identify different marine specimens. You can do this at all times of the year and are encouraged to test every two months. It is a fun outdoor activity for everyone to be involved in. All contributions will help to better understand the gravid periods of urchins and how harvesting may affect their populations.

Please note that harvesting sea urchins is illegal to do on FWC public lands so it has to be done through an organization.