Show some respect... bug hunters at Casino Point

[Blackwood]

Wow, this is a crazy thread that I just now bothered to start. Only got a few pages in. My $0.02:

I am not a hunter. I don't enjoy it. I do enjoy the fruits of other people killing things, but I don't like doing the killing myself.

That said, if I was a hunter, I'd do like Cody: find the easiest, safest, most probable place to hunt. If I were a hunter, I'd take from the dive park.

I find it odd when people suggest that because this wildlife is somewhat acclimated to human presence somehow means that they should be protected from us. I'd say if you appreciate nature, it should be quite the opposite. If I walked up to a polar bear, I wouldn't expect it to say "this guy has been to Sea World and the Zoo a whole bunch, so I'll give him a break." I'd expect him to kill and eat my stupid arse.

That's basic foodchain stuff. Lions, tigers, bears, raptors, sharks, octos, dolphins, and any other predator you can think of go after the weakest catch. Maybe it's the wildebeest with a broken leg. Maybe it's the lobster that doesn't flee.



I'm also somewhat perplexed by the attitude that it's cheating because it isn't difficult, which would lead me to believe one should only be taking bugs from the boiler room of the USS Vammen on a breath hold (naturally) with no game bag. That's difficult. Going to Malaga Cove or rolling off a boat with an HID light, a high pressure 130, a little tool to measure size and a one-way bag to stuff them in? Not so much.

 

[drbill]

Did anyone stop to think that these broken pieces of lobsters that are showing up at Casino Point may not be from some poaching hunter gatherer type, but possibly from a seal or otter that has decided that he has found the motherload.....

Seals and giant sea bass do not walk up the Casino Point stairs and break off legs and antennae at the edge of the wall. Only a human could be the culprit.

 

[drbill]

OK, count another one as (perhaps naively) thinking the park was protected. Spears aren't allowed there, right? (this is what I recall, haven't been in several years.....)

Spearfishing is illegal in any of the City waters including the dive park (although they seem to have forgotten that the ocean adjacent to the Pebbly Beach Road was annexed and therefore constitutes "city waters" yet spearfishing still goes on there.

 

[drbill]

so if you don't like what you are seeing there at Casino Point the I would suggest making it protected.

Precisely what some of us have been trying to do for 20-30 years. Unfortunately only CDF&G can designate a legal reserve, not the City.

 

[drbill]

No argument with any but the last sentence, which can only be determined in context. It's not hypocritical to to want others to do things your way, but it is hypocritical to not treat them the same way you're asking to be treated. To cut to the chase, if you've supported the MLPAs that have and are being established up and down the CA coast, you haven't respected their traditions or sensibilities, you've just taken an opportunity to have your way when it became available - which is all the lobster hunters are doing.

I've made the safe assumption that this applied to many here: to all who posted here in criticism of legal lobster take in legal zones, if you also spoke out against the over-reach and lack of integrity in the MLPA process, you are not a hypocrite.

This is perhaps the most twisted logic I've seen in this thread!

 

[drbill]

I haven't read the entire thread so thank you for the context. I think other than not yet being an ex-extractive user or supporting the new MLPAs, I think the same way. I dive NorCal except for bug trips over the years to the northern Channel Islands, both before and after the MPAs which so far as I could tell were not much of an imposition on the recreational take tradition, except maybe at Anacapa. I gather that down there, like up here, there are sites that have been severely depleted of fish and some other species. I favor use of MPAs in those limited instances. The process that has concluded in the Central and North-Central zones, and is concluding I believe in SoCal, and proceeding in the far north, has not taken that approach. Instead when the opportunity presented itself, as much habitat was put off-limits to fishing as was procedurally and politically tolerable, using the 'try to stop us' definition of tolerable, paid for by private anti-fishing interests. The purpose of the MLPA process was not to compensate for deficiencies in existing fisheries management - those practices have been mostly successful by traditional definitions - it was to turn enormous tracts of traditional sustainable fishing grounds into giant marine parks. You can argue back and forth whether one approach or another is the better for whatever your objectives are.

On the narrow question of whether one can blythely and publicly impune the character or morals of bug hunters at Casino Point without appearing hypocritical, I think only one's own attitudes and actions about respecting the traditions and sensibilities of those recreational fishermen who have been kicked out of their 'parks' can be used to answer it.

I think you need to revisit the statistics. Good science on marine reserves calls for a minimum of 20-30% set asides. The MLPA set asides barely even reach that lower limit. If "hunters" can't respect the right of non-hunters (who dominate the dive community down here) to a mere 20-30% protection, then they are the ones who are selfishly wanting it their way!

I have often said that we should set aside FIFTY PERCENT (like Solomon suggested) since non-hunting divers are substantially in the minority yet want the majority of the ocean open for their activity. No logic there except blatant self interest.

 

[spoolin01]

I thought the issue here was the ethics of personal conduct not the pros and cons of MLPAs.

Q: How can you criticize the respect/morals/ethics of someone for taking bugs legally at Casino Point - because it's a favored, special, and traditional place of natural appreciation while diving - if you also supported the taking from fishermen of their favored spots (where few will ever dive), via a debatably legal/moral/ethical/respectful process.

A: I LIKE MLPAs! They should be happy with what they've got left.

Not the stuff of mutual respect.

This is perhaps the most twisted logic I've seen in this thread!

It's simply the Golden Rule applied to this context. When you arrogate yourself to pass judgement on the ethics of others, your record in that regard had better be pretty clean.

I think you need to revisit the statistics. Good science on marine reserves calls for a minimum of 20-30% set asides. The MLPA set asides barely even reach that lower limit.

Simply false on the percentages, but nicely illustrates the point that when students of natural history wish to impose their social policy values, they often misleadingly proffer bad science to lobby for them.

If "hunters" can't respect the right of non-hunters (who dominate the dive community down here) to a mere 20-30% protection, then they are the ones who are selfishly wanting it their way!

You want it your way, someone else wants it theirs. It's a conflict of values, not a question of science.

I have often said that we should set aside FIFTY PERCENT (like Solomon suggested) since non-hunting divers are substantially in the minority yet want the majority of the ocean open for their activity. No logic there except blatant self interest.

That you feel you (+/- Solomon) speak for 'we', that you say it a lot, or that divers somehow define the spectrum of interests should be an affront to anyone's sense of logic. That it's patently reflective of blatant self interest we can agree upon.

So in other words you do not know anything about lobster. But its a big ocean so they'll be back, right? If you know anything about the abalone population in California, you'd know that sentiment like that has no basis in fact.

Umm, isn't that pretty much exactly what lobster do? In virtually diametric opposition to what abalone do? Did you really mean to compare the two? There are reasons lobster are still abundant and regularly caught in the same old high traffic spots, while abalone have almost disappeared in most places south of San Francisco.

Seriously, if you have knowledge of the natural history of lobster that justify what you said, I'd appreciate you presenting it.

And your knowledge of what is happening to the oceans because of commercial fishing or should I say lack of knowledge of that situation is just humorous. With the number of species being fished out and the lack of any global control over it continuing to happen, if we are going to rely on the oceans for "the meat needs of the world" I hope you really really like vegetables.

You're welcome for the amusement, you should thank god nature abhors a vacuum. What you describe may be true in varying degrees elsewhere, for the most part it's not the case along the US west coast.

More to the point, I never set out to advocate any specific approach to fisheries management, and am supportive of conservation policy generally. Nice dodge.

 

[merxlin]

......More to the point, I never set out to advocate any specific approach to fisheries management, and am supportive of conservation policy generally. Nice dodge.

Please elaborate on what conservation policies you are for.

 

[drbill]

spoolin01... actually what I speak for is less me than for the health of the natural ecosystems. They are NOT healthy for the most part. Do you speak for them? Doesn't sound like it.

We need to uncenter this debate from our selfish human "needs" (on both sides of the fence) and start thinking about what is best for the health of the ecosystems and the species within them.

I say that as a marine ecologist with a number of very favorably peer reviewed scientific papers in international journals, who has dived and studied the waters of SoCal and its kelp forests for over 40 years. My papers on marine reserve theory have been recommended by panels of scientists to Dr. Jane Lubchenco, head of NOAA, for the planning of the federal marine reserve network. Your qualifications?

You say the 20-30% minimum reserve area statistic is "false." It is the scientific guideline given with most scientists feeling it should be closer to 50% instead. What are your sources for claiming they are false? Don't see it.

As for the US West Coast... you need to delve more into early angler's accounts to see how very wrong you are. There is evidence of substantial overfishing on that coast if one uses more appropriate baselines such as the late 1800s or even the end of WWII.

 

[spoolin01]

Drbill - I'm not doubting your credentials in natural history or your intentions, just challenging the primacy you presume for them on this topic. You use a definition of health that is personal and controvertible. The fisherman's opinion that sustained yield is the picture of health is no less apropos. He may not even disagree with any data you cite - though his scientist-advocates will likely dispute your models - he just considers health differently.

Science is mute as to whose opinion should dictate public policy.

The % in your proposed model isn't my issue, the amount of habitat closed to fishermen is. To the fisherman wanting rockfish from his home port, when the two or three nearest and best habitat areas are closed off, that's more than 20-30%. Even in the aggregate, an estimate of 50% of shallow water rockfish habitat in the Central and North Central regions is ball-park. 100% of the habitat is closed below 120/180/240 feet, depending on your location.

Back on the topic of what the bug hunters owe you with regards to Casino Pt - satisfaction of your sensibilities - I say again, do unto others...

merxlin - do unto others...