New State Marine Reserves for "North Central" Coast

[CA_Diver]

The Marine Life Protection Act (I think it's called) covering the "North Central" CA Coast passed yesterday 3-2 by the CA State Fish and Game Commission. This creates several NEW Marine Reserves, which restricts and in some cases prohibits completely the take of sealife both commercially and for sport from designated areas from Mendocino Country to down Half Moon Bay including the Farallons. For more details, see the article from the SF Chronicle at State creates network of marine reserves.

After talking with a rep from the CA Natural Resources Committee, I was linked to a draft of the proposed closure areas, which lists the coordinates and restrictions for each new site. That pdf file can be found here: http://www.fgc.ca.gov/regulations/new/2009/632regs2ipa.pdf. From my understanding, these new restrictions take effect Jan 1, 2010, so mark your calendars if you are a hunter/gatherer and note these closures.

The details of the original proposal can be found here: California Department of Fish & Game, Marine Life Protection Act Initiative. On that page, there is also a low resolution map of the PROPOSED closure area, which may have changed. Hopefully, they will publish a better map, so law abiding sportsmen can continue to hunt/gather responsibly and lawfully.

More restrictions for better or for worse, I guess we'll see what comes of it in the next decade or so. Anyway, this is all I have learned for now and am still gathering more info about it, so feel free to add on or to correct me. I'm sure there will be more info to come.

 

[Chuck Tribolet]

The Marine Life Protection Act was passed by the legislature in 1999 and
mandated that the Fish and Game Commission and the Department of
Fish and Game implement a series of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) based
on the best available science.

These MPAs are implemented by changes to the regulations in the Fish and
Game Code passed by the Fish and Game Commission. They passed
regulations implementing MPAs on the Central Coast (Pigeon Pt. to Pt.
Conception) in April 2007, effective September 2007. What happened
yesterday was the commission passed changes to the regulations
implementing MPAs on the North Central Coast (near Pt. Arena to Pigeon
Pt.) Things are getting underway on the South Coast (Pt. Conception to
the Mexican border). After that there will be the North Coast (near Pt.
Arena to the Oregon border) and SF Bay.

I believe the North Central Coast MPAs will go into effect in
February, 2010.

There are several flavors of MPAs:

State Marine Reserves (SMR): NO TAKE WHATSOEVER.
The other flavors allow some take, and the specifics vary from on
area to the next. The flavors are well-defined at
http://www.dfg.ca.gov/mlpa/defs.asp

 

[JustinW]

This topic gets me so fired up! I will refrain from my own views too much but thought this would be a very interesting article for anyone on either side of the issue to read.

North Coast Government Agencies Protest Rush to Create Marine Reserves

This page gives links to humboldtbay.org and the letters various government agencies have signed urging the MLPA process be better researched before being implemented. I'm trying to follow every public meeting I can on this topic.

 

[Chuck Tribolet]

"The MLPA Initiative process creates Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) that
ban all or most types of recreational and commercial fishing. Some areas,
known as "Special Closures" even ban non-fishing boat, surfing and
kayak traffic. North Coast governmental agencies all share concerns that
economic impacts related to these potential closures will not be properly
evaluated or considered. Those signing the letter requesting MLPA delay
are also concerned about the membership of a Blue Ribbon Task Force
that would evaluate North Coast MPA proposals and recommend their own
option to the California Fish and Game Commission. This task force is not
part of the original MLPA legislation, no members are from the North
Coast region, and none have special knowledge or training that would
give scientific weight to their opinion."

Please read the defintions of the MPAs at
http://www.dfg.ca.gov/mlpa/defs.asp.
Most allow from some to quite a bit of take.
Only the State Marine Reserves are no take. I'm not concerned
about "Special Closures". They are for exceptional circumstances,
and there weren't any on the central coast. There were some
on the North Central Coast to protect bird nesting habitat.

The BRTF was a means of implementing the MLPA and was not
prohibited by the MLPA.

 

[drbill]

Well, I for one see two options... closures in the form of marine reserves, or closures because the consumptive community (along with other factors including pollution, habitat modification, etc) has taken so many of the species' population that they are not capable of maintaining reproductive viability.

The marine protected areas generally amount to less than the 30% often suggested as the minimum for effectiveness. If the consumptive community cannot live with that, I suggest the fairest approach is to divide it 50-50!

We have over-harvested so many of our target species over periods of decades to a century plus that none of us really know the ecological possibilities.

I was just talking to an avoid spear fisher today who stated that in the years he's been diving off our island he has seen such marked declines in most (but not all) target species. His perceptions match my own, acquired over 40 years of diving Catalina.

 

[drbill]

For those who don't like the State of California's MLPA process, be aware that the federal government is looking at developing the same kind of networks of marine reserves and other protected areas through federal-level action. If the State didn't do it, the feds would. One of my papers on criteria for defining reserve boundaries is among a dozen on the topic suggested to NOAA Administrator Dr. Jane Lubchenko as a model component recently.

 

[JustinW]

What the MPA process is doing in Monterey and the North Coast is opening up new fishing grounds. In Monterey for example, fishermen are finding their old grounds closed, so they are running south to previously untouched waters. The pressure has now been diverted to Big Sur and places south of Point Lobos in much greater volume than it previously was. On the North Coast it will take abalone populations and concentrate harvest into fewer areas. Sure the bunnyhuggers think they get their way, but what happens is a diversion of fishing pressure to other areas. This is one of the flaws of MPA's that do not allow take. If we want a lower take, I believe we should focus more on reducing seasons or increasing minimum take sizes or reducing bag limits. Don't push fishing pressure to previously untouched grounds. On the positive side for fishermen, they are slamming the groundfish stocks in the new areas they are having to explore even if it means burning more fuel to get there. Now they burn more fuel and pressure previously untouched stocks, or we head for albacore in International waters.

 

[CA_Diver]

It's important that we have conservation efforts to ensure that California's coastal waters are beautiful and bountiful for future generations; it's finding the right method of implementation is tough. Sure fishermen are pressured to move to other grounds to fish, but hopefully the grounds they have chosen to protect will act like the sanctuaries and help fill the what is taken as they propose it will. However, I do agree somewhat with Justin that tighter restrictions like larger size limits (I've seen people keeping rockfish about the size of my hand then fillet it for little more than a fish stick and perch the size of shiners, which I don't believe are really even worth eating - this sort of stuff DISGUSTS me, I mean come one people, let's be reasonable here), smaller bag limits (debatable - some things are a little tight some are higher than needed really, but it really depends on your needs, I guess - but really people just need to not waste and in a sense treasure what they've caught), and more species restrictions (protecting species that are actually suffering from overfishing or are known to significantly affect the food web with scientific reason would be more convincing to the general populous than just closing everything arbitrarily) rather than complete closure would be a better option. In my possibly naive thinking, that would help disperse fishing pressures and keep take and waste to a minimum instead of just "slamming" one place to save another. But all in all, my feeling is that the recreational angler is not the biggest problem especially up on the north coast where the population is thin and the number of potential "regular" anglers is reduced as opposed to large scale fishing operations and even smaller ones that don't respect the waters off our coast. ...and of course water diversion and pollution play a big role too, but that's a whole other topic.

Anyway, there are probably tons of different ways it could have been done differently, and depending on what stance you take on it, your opinion of the new SMR's will vary. What matters now is that it is what it is, so until something changes take note of these new restrictions so you don't get caught fishing in the wrong spot. I just hope in the end (if there is such a thing) there will be some compromise that satisfies both anglers and conservationists that works to actually preserve our fisheries and coastal waters for future generations, but maybe that is too idealistic.