Show some respect... bug hunters at Casino Point

[merxlin]

.......Seriously, our laws are amenable and *should* reflect best practices. If a large, vocal group feels passionately about the park being no-take, work that angle. It's just silly to moan on the sidelines or threaten others who are acting legally. That's not going to be productive.

No one is moaning on the sidelines. I know for a fact that many of us who have posted here also have been active in getting the area designated as a preserve.

 

[Blow.Fish]

Having a falsely large population of fish and life for divers to see is a good thing?

Possibly if divers got a more realistic idea of what the rest of the island looks like the'd be more proactive with having their views reflected by laws. It is like seeing Colorado National Park or Yellowstone and then thinking the whole rest of the Rockies are covered with incredibly huge deer, moose, bear and elk even though the trophies are being killed off every where else? No, I'd prefer the general public gets to see the normal man regulated and engineered population.

I'm sorry this entire argument is based on a very sad premise - that the population of wildlife life seen in protected areas (whether by law or by general agreement) is some how abnormal. The argument smacks of the classic trappings of "shifting baselines".

Try to imagine what this ecosystem must been like 50, 100, 500 years ago. Then ask yourself , which is the more accurate representation of the natural potential ?

These type of sanctuaries are indeed special places that are well worthy of protecting. They serve as evidence of the magnificence that nature is capable of and what things could be like if we could reverse the damage that we humans have done.

 

[The Chairman]

I fully agree that people should be polite AND follow all the laws, but I think that politeness may extend all the way to keeping your nose out of other people's business when they are in full compliance with the laws.

:gans:​

Your post is in contradiction to itself. There is no law prohibiting any of us from expressing our opinions here or at Casino Point, so it's impolite of you to ask anyone to stop. In my humble opinion, the "Polite" thing would be to not hunt at Casino Point. That's the real point.

 

[D_B]

Why do you need to hunt in this park ?

I haven't heard a reasonable argument yet as to why there, and not outside it


I see that most (if not everyone) has said they wouldn't hunt there ... so who is doing it?

 

[Grover48]

Not me - it's the other guy.

Seems we have time to fix the blame but not time to fix the problem. Problem is there is no law against hunting in the park and if that can be fixed, let's do it. We need to be involved in this and not just let ther other guy do it.

 

[Mo2vation]

Why do you need to hunt in this park ?

I haven't heard a reasonable argument yet as to why there, and not outside it


I see that most (if not everyone) has said they wouldn't hunt there ... so who is doing it?

You won't.

There isn't one. The only argument is "because its legal - because I / they can..."

That argument is not even in the same zip code as reasonable.

The central thing that is polarizing the issue is this: Some of us see this patch of shore, this stair entry domesticated managed site as a special place. Set aside. We can see that the water just on the outside of that buoy line is a little less blue, a little less clear. We have reasoned the kelp just over there - past that sunken rope, is a little less pretty.

The central polarizing issue is some of us esteem the dive park as a special place, worthy of a higher level of personal protection. We've learned to dive there, or we've grown to love diving there. We've been visiting it for decades. We've come to know every inch of it. We take students there and see the awe and wonder as they're ushered into a lifetime of diving. To us, this sand, these rocks, that kelp and all the live in and around it is simply more special than the sand, rocks and kelp just up the road.

On the other side - its just another site. Nothing special. Nothing extraordinary. Nothing exciting happens there. Its no different than any other site. They can hunt, so let 'em hunt (although I'd never hunt there....)

You haven't heard a reasonable argument for hunting in the park because there isn't one. Its indefensible.




-Ken

 

[drbill]

First, anyone who knows me realizes that I am not a violent person. In fact, I have never thrown a punch in my life. My statement was not to be taken seriously (heck, no one else takes anything I say seriously) but an expression of my frustration.

Second, I am a bit disturbed by the posts of some here, especially those much younger than myself. It seems to be a prevalent attitude that if it is legal, it is fine... whether or not it seriously impacts the rights of others. Much of the economic mess we are in came from traders who felt the same way about making mortgages they knew were unsustainable (but perfectly legal) or selling derivatives that were legal but highly questionable (especially with little disclosure). I am very proud that my son does not think this way (and he came to his own conclusions since I was not around for his first 17 years of life).

I come from the 60s where things were viewed differently, at least by the people I hung with. There are many things I don't do voluntarily because I think they are harmful to marine ecosystems or the rights of others (even though they are legal). I stopped taking bugs back in 1975 (but don't chastise others for doing so where appropriate). I can walk across the street right in front of a car, but I wait at the curb for traffic to clear because I don't see my legal right to enter a crosswalk to be appropriate when it means stopping a car unnecessarily.

I have worked for several years to get the dive park categorized as a legal reserve, and hopefully that will happen in December.

Cody, as for the protection of the garibaldi, I am old enough to know that garibaldi were so easy to take by spearfishers because of their nest defense behavior that CDF&G felt it was necessary to protect them. Wish they had acted sooner on the giant sea bass which a spearfisher can swim right up to and spear with little trouble. It's like spearing a moo cow grazing out in a field. Fortunately they finally did act in banning take and longlines/gillnets and we are seeing the apparent recovery.

And as for the dive park having an "unnaturally high" number of critters in it, this merely illustrates the fact that many lack the proper baselines to judge the health of our current ecosystems. I have only dived them for 41 years, and even that baseline is not enough to capture what they were like in 1945 when the mass migration of US citizens into the SoCal region following WWII began. Within just a few years, CDF&G had to initiate protective measures for a number of species that were being decimated in that short time frame.

I suggest that the rest of the Catalina leeward coast would more closely resemble the conditions in the dive park IF they weren't so heavily fished, largely by party and recreational boats from the huge population center of SoCal. I talk to anglers who have been fishing Catalina waters as far back as the 1910s (yes back then) and they tell me of the ricj abundance formerly here. Read the stories of Zane Grey or Dr. Charles Frederick Holder writing about our waters in the late 1890s and early 1900s.

One needs the proper baseline with which to judge the health of our ecosystems. Many of us do not have that.

 

[vistasbelow]

I am an instructor and professional guide on Catalina Island and I do hundreds of guided dives in the dive park every year. Yesterday I did two guided dives with customers and I went around to all of the places where I can shine my light under a rock and show my clients lobsters. I have been doing this all summer and I can guarantee I will show my customers lobsters...... I could only find one yesterday and I could barely see its antennas deep under the rocks. It seems to me that until the last couple of years there have only been a couple of local jerks that were self centered enough to hunt in the dive park, but now it seems there are loads of non-locals from the mainland picking it clean. I am very disappointed. The dive park is supposed to be an aquarium like, protected example of the California kelp forest so that people can snorkel and dive and see all of the critters that live there. People should respect that and not chase out the sea life that makes the dive park special.

 

[Captain12Pk]

The dive community has long treated the Casino Point Dive Park as a de facto marine reserve so the critters in it would be there for all to see and enjoy.

However, there are those who take advantage of this and take lobster from it. Weeks before season started, we were seeing discarded carapaces with no tails suggesting that divers had been taking them. The night after season opened, someone took at least one bug and left the antennae and many legs discarded within the wall at the dive park steps.

Eventually I hope those who disrespect the Fish & Game laws are caught and punished. Poachers leave a bad taste in my regulator. Those who disrespect the desire of most of the dive community to protect Casino Point for others to enjoy deserve my ire as well.

In addition to removing bugs from that ecosystem, you are making them leery of us no take divers as well. I noticed a few weeks before season began that the lobster I tried to film at night became very skittish when my video lights caught them. Prior to that they were much less so.

Show some respect! I realize the vast majority of divers do not do such things, so this is directed at the few who do. Come December hopefully we can bring legal action against these few... or vigilante justice. Using a speargun is illegal in City waters... but apparently not topside from my read of the ordinance!

Just out of curiosity...
How do we know the lobster were actually taken from the park? I've used the park steps to enter and exit the water many times, when in fact my destination was completely outside the park boundaries. And in more than one of those destinations lobster were plentiful. So just curious about that.
BTW, I heard a rumor recently that the park was being designated as a preserve. Any truth to that?

 

[Codyjp]

I guess I'm confused by the amount of effort going into protecting just a few hundred feet of Catalina while the rest is being rapped and pillaged daily. Seems that if the general population saw what the rest of the island looked like they'd be more willing to support the MLPA's.

Trust me I'm not in favor of hunting in the park, it just seems to me peoples energy is being mis directed to protect just their back yards.