Department critical after Ramsay dives for sea urchins

THE DEPARTMENT of the Environment has said that it is “disappointed” that British celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay did not contact it before scuba diving off the north Clare coast for sea urchins.

However, Mr Ramsay’s action was not illegal as sea urchins are echinoderms rather than shellfish, the department says. Scuba diving for shellfish is illegal in State waters under a 1966 by-law.

Mr Ramsay’s latest series of The F Word documentary for Channel 4 was partly filmed on the west coast of Ireland during April.

The Scottish chef, who has secured 12 Michelin stars, is best known for his confrontational style in his programmes for both British and north American television, such as Hell’s Kitchen, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares and The F Word.

An episode of the latest F Word series broadcast on May 13th showed Mr Ramsay diving off the north Clare coast for what was described as “one of his favourite foods” – sea urchins.

“Catching the sea urchins is no easy task. It’s done by hand, under water, moving with high velocity tides on drift dives,” the website link to the episode states. “Gordon has never been diving for urchins before and reckons this is the most exciting place in the world to do it.”

Mr Ramsay’s first attempt proved fruitless, but he was more successful on his second. “The hunt is on. Gordon and the crew search for hours. With just minutes to go Gordon catches site of a cluster of sea urchins,” the website says. “The oxygen in his tanks is running low. Gordon has a desperate race against the clock to net as many urchins as possible before he runs out of air. Frozen and exhausted, Gordon drags his catch back to the boat.”

Mr Ramsay teamed up with a sushi chef and offered shoppers in Galway samples of cooked sea urchin with scrambled egg.

The Department of the Environment said that no contact had been made by the production team with the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) before the filming.

“What Mr Ramsay did wasn’t technically illegal, but this is not an activity we would encourage, due to the impact on marine habitats. We commend other divers for bringing this to our attention,” a department spokesman said.

A spokeswoman for Mr Ramsay said that prior to filming, advice about the legality of “fishing” for urchins was sought from both the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and from Dunmanus Seafoods in Durrus, Co Cork, which distributes farmed sea urchins.

“Both sources advised that licences are not required for the collection of sea urchins as unlike other shellfish they can only be hand-dived and not collected via pots, dredging or other methods,” Mr Ramsay’s spokeswoman said.

In an earlier series of The F Word, Mr Ramsay’s production team attracted controversy over film shots of him spear-fishing for sea bass.

It transpired that the fish had been caught beforehand by a hired spearfishing squad.