Most sea urchins have edible gonads, and the purple sea urchins that are out-competing everything were eaten by native Californians. The article mentions an important fishery for red sea urchins, but not the purple ones, apparently because they are too small to bother. I found a book on the subject that mentions another problem too: in barrens where kelp are gone, urchins tend to have poor quality gonads, making them even less attractive as food. So they were skeptical that we might eat our way out of such problems.
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