The ocean along the Mendocino Coast is not only beautiful, it's also home to some fascinating creatures.

Take the sunflower sea star: When it eats its preferred meal of a tasty purple sea urchin, it first pushes its stomach out through its mouth, then slurps everything back in to digest.

"Then when they are done, they push the urchin skeleton, called a 'test,' out," said Kenzi Lamb, who works for the California State Parks System in Mendocino County as an interpreter, and recently gave a talk designed for classrooms called "Help the Kelp" that aimed to teach students about the important of protecting the marine environment they live near.

"My job is to go out and study the coast and the ocean and share what I learn with you," said Lamb while standing along the Pacific Ocean at Mendocino Headlands State Park, which she described as very close to two different marine protected areas: "The Big River Estuary State Marine Conservation Area where the Big River meets the Pacific Ocean, and the Van Damme State Marine Conservation Area. These areas are very important because they help us protect the plants and animals that live there."

While most of the time humans can only see the surface of the water while looking at Big River or the Pacific Ocean, Lamb said that there is a whole "forest ecosystem underwater that is full of all sorts of amazing creatures, such as fish, sea lions, sharks, snails, "and those sea stars that like to eat sea urchins."

In fact, Lamb said that the sunflower sea stars are called "the wolf of the sea, because they eat some many purple sea urchins and help keep their populations low."

Unfortunately, Lamb said, the sea star population has drastically declined in recently years, due to a "wasting disease" followed by a "marine heatwave," which she said caused most of the sea stars on our coast, who thrive in "ice-cold sea water," to die off.

"So without the sunflower sea stars, we had many more purple sea urchins, who like to eat kelp," she said, explaining that without predators like sea stars and sea otters, the urchins took over and "kind of clear cut the beautiful, healthy kelp forest" that helped so many other species thrive by providing food, habitat and homes for snails, sea lions and fish.

"So how do we help the kelp?" continued Lamb, pointing to efforts by marine scientists to grow both seas stars and kelp with the intent of boosting their populations in the ocean again.

"A lot of different places are trying (to grow sea stars) nice and big and strong in the hopes of releasing them," she said, explaining that other groups of scientists are "growing kelp and starting kelp forests."

A third way humans can help bring back kelp forests is by foraging for urchins, she said.

"Eating sea urchins is actually a way to help the kelp," said Lamb, pointing to people who are "diving and collecting urchins to use them for all sorts of things, like food, fertilizer, or for making natural dyes from their purple color. And sometimes the very skinny urchins are taken into aquariums to fatten them up and make them good to eat."

This summer, the Noyo Center for Marine Science in Fort Bragg marked its first 10 years by noting several accomplishments that include "monitoring sea urchin populations, tracking our fast-vanishing sea stars (and launching) a regenerative aquaculture program to address the kelp crisis through an abalone broodstock program, purple sea urchin ranching, and seaweed tumble culture."