DOT raiding dive centers in Monterey?

[Wookie]

I bet once the newest dive store hydro facility in the neighborhood opens all will make sense.

Somebody is opening a dive shop? Fool. I can sell them a boat at twice the cost...

 

[spoolin01]

There was a small commercial abalone fishery in Northern California way back in the mid to late 40's by a group of Japanese prospectors that worked out of San Francisco. They would come north in their boats to harvest and tried to establish an industry. After several mishaps and very challenging and quickly changing conditions they deemed it too unsafe, not cost effective, and not worth the liability to continue. Right after that in the early 50's California passed a law that no scuba would be allowed to take abalone north of the Golden Gate Bridge. They realized early on that the new Aqualung would be a device that would lead to depletion very quickly. They even had pretty good foresight back then to know that scuba would be the death of the fishery. They continued to allow it in Socal and look at the results. Norcal has always been more environmentally keen than Socal.

Minor quibble, but I'm pretty sure the demarcation was Yankee Pt south of Monterey, not the GG.

Commercial abalone fishing in SoCal was closed in the 90's as a result of the population collapse and has never reopened. There are still arguments as to why it collapsed - kelp reduction, overfishing, and abalone wasting disease are the three most cited reasons.

-Adrian

or sea otters, which were rebounding during the ab decline, specifically south of the GG. Monterey/Carmel has never been inside the scuba take zone, at least in recent history, yet there are no abalone there (to speak of), despite abundant kelp. Which contrasts dramatically with the case north of the GG, where there are no otters.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Minor quibble, but I'm pretty sure the demarcation was Yankee Pt south of Monterey, not the GG.

Abalone take on scuba was allowed from the center of the GGB south to the Mexican border up until 1997, and it was never allowed north of the bridge. So my understanding is the GGB was always the line from day one and it was never moved.
I don't know for sure, but I could do some research and find for sure if you'd like?

 

[spoolin01]

No that's not correct. The demarcation for tanks was Yankee Pt, south of Monterey. I started freediving for Abs around '90, and I recall the regs. All commercial diving for reds, and rec freediving for reds south of the GG was stopped in '97. I believe any take of other species was stopped at various points just prior to that, but this last part I'm less certain of.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

No that's not correct. The demarcation for tanks was Yankee Pt, south of Monterey. I started freediving for Abs around '90, and I recall the regs. All commercial diving for reds, and rec freediving for reds south of the GG was stopped in '97. I believe any take of other species was stopped at various points just prior to that, but this last part I'm less certain of.

I had a boss once that said he used to go to Monterey to tank dive for abs because it was legal. Apparently and according to your info he was in violation then. He used to dive there in the 70's and early 80's. Is it possible that scuba was allowed at one time in Monterey but then they moved it to Yankee Pt. sometime in the mid to late 80's?
He complained that there were no abs to be found because the otters got them all.
At one time the North Coast had a lot of otters too. They were bigger hardier otters than the variety found in Monterey and south. These were otters on steroids and made very nice coats, as the Russians found out and systematically wiped them out. After the otter populations collapsed the Russians figured there was nothing here for them and California was nothing but a worthless waste land so they packed up and went back to Russia.
We can thank the Russians for our robust populations of giant red abalone up here.

 

[spoolin01]

He might have meant just south of Monterey. Yankee Pt is just a mile or two below Lobos. I don't know when the law was first put in place but I saw something from 1962 that referred to Yankee Pt being the dividing line for abs on scuba even then.

It was this great monograph, that I just found is available online. The good old days of F&W...

Otters are no doubt a major predator of abalone, but how do they stack up against cabezon? Monterey and Carmel were ground zero for commercial harvest from the beginning, at a point long before the otter populations rebounded AFAIK, so it's hard to divine their role there in decimating the abalone.

Here's a quote from the monograph:

It is difficult to estimate the extent of these depredations because it has not been possible to obtain an accurate abalone count on a bed of any size. The
original abalone population can only be estimated and after a visit by sea otters the empty shells recovered may not
be complete. In areas which were inspected before and after sea otters had arrived (Carmel Cove and Stillwater
Cove), the number of empty shells on the bottom indicated large numbers had been taken but the beds were not
"wiped out."

The California sea otter population consists of a number of scattered herds distributed from Monterey south to
Piedras Blancas. The number of sea otters in all the herds is estimated at 690 to 700 animals (Boolootian, 1961).
Except for the southernmost herd, most of them live in areas where abalones have seldom been reported; however,
any further southerly expansion by the population could conceivably place sea otters in an area where they would be
competing with commercial abalone fishermen. Boolootian (pers. corres.) observed that sea urchins,
Strongylocentrotus spp, made up about 60 percent of the sea otter's diet, mussels, Mytilus californianus,
approximately 35 percent, and red abalones about 5 percent. They also ate a few crabs, and an occasional fish or
strand of kelp.
How sea otters remove abalones from rocks is not known. In deeper water where there is little or no surge, abalones
may be found clinging to the substrate by the posterior third of their foot, waiting for food to drift by. When they are in
this position, with the forepart of the body raised, they could be dislodged easily by a sharp blow from the
paw of a sea otter. A skindiver at Carmel said he has seen sea otters remove abalones from rocks essentially in this
manner. Usually, however, abalones grip the rocks tightly and can be removed only by prying with a flat iron bar. Many
of the abalone shells found where sea otters have been feeding have a large piece broken out of the top or off the
side. From the condition of these shells, it is suspected that sea otters use a rock to knock out a hole and then reach
in and strip the viscera, leaving the abalone clinging to the rock. After a short period, the abalone would weaken and
the sea otter could descend, pull it off the rock, take it to the surface and eat it. I obtained evidence that the sea
otters were doing essentially this at Point Lobos in June 1958.
In approximately 50 feet of water, on a relatively flat bottom I found an abalone with a large piece broken out of the
top of its shell and the viscera removed. The abalone was still clinging to a rock. About four feet away was a stone
about the same size as the abalone. The lower half of the stone was clean where it had been buried in the sand and
the upper portion, which had been exposed, was covered with coralline algae. I felt certain that one of the many sea
otters in the area had just attempted to gather this abalone by picking up the stone, smashing the abalone's shell and
removing its viscera (Figure 16), My presence had probably frightened it off before it could descend and remove the
abalone.

It may well be that destruction of the north coast otter populations resulted in the amazing abundance of red abalone there now. Which of course only highlights the inherent arbitrariness of so-called baseline targeting used by F&W to design their population objectives.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I find many small abalone shells in pristine condition laying on the ocean floor. This is a result of the Cabezon swallowing them whole, digesting the abalone soft tissue, then regurgitating the perfectly cleaned shell.
They must have an impact because I find them everywhere. Next I see a wasteland of larger legal size abalone shells at popular easy access beach diving spots in the 10 to 15 foot range. I credit these shells to abalone divers that pick these abs then decide to upgrade to bigger ones and drop these abs where they are and left to die sometimes if they've been cut. Then there's the infamous die offs due to the plankton blooms where hundreds if not thousands of abalone meats only are found on beaches and quite a powerful odor. The abalone dies and the meat comes loose from the shell and drifts to shore whereas the shell remains on the sea floor. Then of course there are poachers who may come in and wipe out hundreds of abs at one location taking everything they can find. This is apparent when one day you go there and there are plentiful abalone, and the next time you go there they are completely gone. I seriously doubt this is due to a mass migration or exodus.
Despite all this pressure plus the legal take, I can show you spots that literally have abalone crawling over each other. From what I have seen I think the DFG does a very slip shot job of abalone counts because they are in stark contrast to what I actually observe.

 

[spoolin01]

I find many small abalone shells in pristine condition laying on the ocean floor. This is a result of the Cabezon swallowing them whole, digesting the abalone soft tissue, then regurgitating the perfectly cleaned shell.
They must have an impact because I find them everywhere. Next I see a wasteland of larger legal size abalone shells at popular easy access beach diving spots in the 10 to 15 foot range. I credit these shells to abalone divers that pick these abs then decide to upgrade to bigger ones and drop these abs where they are and left to die sometimes if they've been cut. Then there's the infamous die offs due to the plankton blooms where hundreds if not thousands of abalone meats only are found on beaches and quite a powerful odor. The abalone dies and the meat comes loose from the shell and drifts to shore whereas the shell remains on the sea floor. Then of course there are poachers who may come in and wipe out hundreds of abs at one location taking everything they can find. This is apparent when one day you go there and there are plentiful abalone, and the next time you go there they are completely gone. I seriously doubt this is due to a mass migration or exodus.
Despite all this pressure plus the legal take, I can show you spots that literally have abalone crawling over each other. From what I have seen I think the DFG does a very slip shot job of abalone counts because they are in stark contrast to what I actually observe.

And even in places that are the focus of take and hit hard year after year, you can easily limit on 8" abalone in 15 ft of water. Fisheries management regularly seems a particularly good example of the beaurocratic imperative: "we have to do something... this is something". Process almost wholly absent meaningful critique of substance.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Or what they do go somewhere easy with their diving crew Which consists of mediocre at best divers with maybe a BA in marine biology. Diving really isn't their strong suit, it's just a tool for the job, so hiking to remote spots or using an vessel isn't practical. Typically they pick a spot like Vandamme state beach because it's the easiest access and nobody will get hurt and they can park a hundred feet from the water. Vandamme is also one of the most picked over places on the entire coast, but that's where they do their counts and base their data. You could go one cove over and it will literally look like the bottom is paved with abs. Sometimes I can't understand how an area can support those kind of populations.

 

[Joe Underwater]

Ok, so it was true. Thanks all for the replies and interesting posts, though I didn't read the last page since it was all about abs. ~