Giant Sea Bass count for Dr. Milton Love

[MaxBottomtime]

I am forwarding this from Dr. Milton Love. Please consider participating.
The Great Giant Sea Bass Count
Okay, so how many giant sea bass are there in southern California?
What It Is
Giant sea bass (we still like to call them black sea bass), Stereolepis gigas, were almost fished out nearly 50 years ago in southern California. While they are now starting to make a comeback, we don’t know how many of them there are in southern California. The Great Giant Sea Bass Count is one way to estimate the minimum number of these fish in our waters and is an important part of a joint research project between researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara and California State University, Northridge to learn more about giant sea bass populations.
When It Takes Place
1– 7 August.
What to Do
1) Dive any location in southern California – reefs, oil platforms, shipwrecks, breakwaters, submarine canyons, sand flats, islands, mainland, shallow water, deep water – we don’t care.
2) Each dive can be for as long as you want – there is no minimum or maximum time.
3) On each dive avoid covering the same sea floor twice – so you don’t count the same fish twice.
4) For every dive record the following:
A) Date and start time
B) Location: include latitude and longitude of your dive site—this is important data; if you can’t provide this, the name of the dive site and/or your bearing from a distinct coastal landmark will be useful.
C. The number of giant sea bass and each fish’s length.
C) Bottom depth.
D) Habitat type:
a. All or mostly rocks or other hard material or all or mostly sand
or mud.
b. Lots, some, or no vegetation (kelp, sea grass etc.).
5) IMPORTANT: If you don’t see any giant sea bass that is okay, please let us know that. Zeros are important information for science.
6) Register for the count and learn more by liking our Giant Sea Bass Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/giantseabass.
Specific Questions Regarding the Survey?
Query Milton Love: love@lifesci.ucsb.edu
Some Information About Giant Sea Bass
Love, M. Certainly More Than You Want to Know About the Fishes of the
Pacific Coast. Really Big Press.
How to Report
Send your findings to Milton Love: giantseabasscount@gmail.com
or snailmail to: Milton Love, Marine Science Institute, University of
California, Santa Barbara,
CA 93106.

 

[drbill]

Will be involved with Dr. Larry Allen and the group from Cal State Northridge on this. So far I've been skunked this year... but then I rarely look up when I'm filming and most of my summer dives are at night.