As sardines vanish from Southern California coastal waters, fishermen rely on squid and anchovy

Larry Derr was as prepared as any longtime Southern California bait fisherman for the disappearance of the Pacific sardines he has pulled up by the ton since the 1980s.He can fish anchovies instead and, if those become scarce, there's been a local surge in market squid to keep him in business.But the fickle sardines have been so abundant for so many years - sometimes holding court as the most plentiful fish in coastal waters - that it was a shock when he couldn't find one of the shiny silver- blue coastal fish all summer, even though this isn't the first time they've vanished.And the similar, but smaller, anchovies have proven a poor replacement since sardines became scarce. Fortunately, a boom in market squid has propelled Derr and other coastal pelagic fishers.In three days of nighttime fishing last week, Derr barely cleared a measly 20 scoops of anchovies to sell."A couple days ago we caught a ton of anchovies," Derr said, keeping a vigilant eye for the telltale red mass on the In-Seine's sonar during a predawn hunt Saturday. The screen remained black with irregularly dispersed green dots representing schools too small to fish. "We want this to be solid red."Though sardines aren't as valuable as tuna or rockfish, they're an important food source for larger fish, marine mammals like sea lions, dolphins and whales, and sea birds that can spot them from the air and dive for them.Some have attributed recent rashes of sea lion pup and pelican deaths to the sardine population decline, which began a few years ago and was officially recognized in December when the fishing quota was dropped to just 5,446 metric tons for all of California, Oregon and Washington from January to June. In the same time period last year, the quota was 18,073 metric tons.The Pacific Fishery Management Council lowered the quota in November after years of sardine stock decline from 2006, when 1.4 million tons were estimated to be swimming around the north Pacific. This year, their numbers are believed to be less than 400,000 metric tons.Read the full article here.

PG&E tests bad for sea life and also for fishing industry

 Written By Brian StacyFOR much of the 20th Century Southern California was a world leader in seafood production. The once-thriving tuna fishing fleet, based at the Port of Los Angeles and in San Diego, plied distant waters for months at a time returning to local canneries that employed thousands of people.Today, the U.S. tuna industry is a distant memory, the victim of subsidized foreign competition, unfair trade practices, government over-regulation, and in some cases under-regulation.Historically, California's commercial fishing industry once employed tens of thousands of people in fishing, fish processing, boat building and boat repair and allied industries. Recreational fishing has been a staple of the coastal tourism. Both have been a vibrant part of the California coastal economy, from Eureka to the Mexican border.I fish the waters of the central California coast. Those of us who remain, men and women who work at sea and harvest many of the types of fish we find in the supermarkets and in restaurants, have to be creative, nimble, and able to adapt to a sometimes harsh natural and political environment.It is infuriating when yet another hurdle is erected making it nearly impossible for us to practice our trade. But this time it isn't Mother Nature, imported farm-raised fish, or some government edict. This time it is a public utility - Pacific Gas & Electric, the energy behemoth whose aged gas lines exploded and ravaged the San Bruno community in 2010.PG&E also owns the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, on the San Luis Obispo County coast. Diablo Canyon now threatens the central coast fishing industry, the local marine environment, and the livelihood of both commercial and recreational fishers.Read the rest of the article on Los Angeles Daily News.  

For California Fishermen, Squid Means Big Money

                   

 

 Written by Tony Barboza, Los Angeles TimesLong before calamari reaches the table, crews set out from San Pedro and elsewhere to round up California's most valuable catch. But environmentalists question whether the haul is too large. 

As the sun sets over the ocean, the six crewmen on the Cape Blanco are starting a long night's work off the far side of Santa Catalina Island, putting on orange slickers and hard hats to fish for the milky white mollusks that have become California's most valuable catch.Below the gentle waves off the side of the boat swims an immense school of market squid.Capt. Nick Jurlin, pacing impatiently with a cigarette dangling from his mouth, is eager to pull in as much of it as possible.Five nights a week, the third-generation fisherman from San Pedro steps into a pair of rubber boots and hunts for squid along the Southern California coast. The 50-year-old with spiky blond hair and wraparound sunglasses looks the part of a man who's wrestled with nets in the salty air since he was a teenager — his arms are taut, his neck creased and weathered, his voice gravelly from going without sleep.On a night like this, the 90-foot steel vessel can bring in as much as $50,000 worth of the seafood so popular worldwide that all but a fraction is shipped overseas to be served as calamari.But for the Cape Blanco and dozens of squid fishing boats working out of ports like San Pedro and Monterey, the boom is an uncertain one. Doubts are emerging about how long one of California's last remaining money fish will stay bountiful.Though Jurlin and his crew are four hours from shore tonight, they are not alone.Rocking in the waves around them are a dozen other purse seiners beginning the same ritual: encircling the darting mass of tentacled, hot dog-sized sea creatures with huge nets that will be cinched up like the drawstring of a purse.A flotilla of smaller boats assists by following the swarms and coaxing them to the surface with 30,000-watt lanterns that light up the ocean with an otherworldly green and white glow.On Jurlin's signal, a deckhand swings a hefty metal bar above his head and slams it into a pelican hook, freeing a clunky metal skiff that plunges into the water and rumbles away, its motor filling the night air with exhaust.Each man takes his position on the Cape Blanco's deck, working among strained cables and ropes as thick as fire hoses. A hydraulic winch whirs, engines roar and propellers gurgle as a tangle of black netting, yellow floats and steel rings tumble into the water off the back of the boat. The skiff tows it all in a wide circle around the squid, trapping the school.Most of the world's market squid is harvested from California's shallow waters, where they gather in enormous schools each year to mate, deposit their eggs on the seafloor and die.Cold ocean conditions have drawn them in such numbers lately that fishermen have handily caught their 118,000-ton limit — enough to fill 60 Olympic-size swimming pools — and the state has shut them down early two years running. Surging demand in China, Japan, Mexico and Europe has boosted prices and launched a fishing frenzy worth more than $70 million a year.The good times have drawn the attention of conservationists, who fear such abundant catches are threatening the foundation of a delicate marine food web. Groups like Oceana and Audubon California are pushing for new protections for squid, sardines, anchovies, herring and other small, schooling prey known as "forage fish."A bill moving its way through the California Legislature would require the state to leave more small fish in the water for seabirds, whales, dolphins and other natural predators to feed on.Those like Jurlin, whose families have fished these waters for generations, say a smaller catch could be crippling.::During the squid season, Jurlin pushes off each afternoon from Terminal Island, where a few other purse seiners dock along a waterfront of weedy and abandoned lots where street names — Sardine, Cannery and Wharf — reflect a fish-packing industry that is largely gone.He follows the squid from the Channel Islands to San Diego, setting out net after net and returning before dawn the next morning.Tonight he motors along the backside of Catalina as his crewmen eat spaghetti and watch baseball in the galley. Many, like Jurlin, are the sons or grandsons of fishermen.It isn't long before they bring in their first net.Frigid water falls in sheets from the net as it is pulled through a giant hydraulic pulley towering above the deck. The men pile it into a slippery mound, slowly corralling the squid closer to the boat.Whether stacking rings or piloting the skiff, each crewman is dedicated to a single task. There is no conversation. It is dangerous, straining work, and they focus with intense precision.By the time Jurlin and several deckhands reach over the side of the boat to gather the last bunches of loose net, their bright slickers are drizzled with black ink from the squid.Fishing for squid can be good money, but it is unpredictable.The boat's owner, Tri Marine Fish Co., takes half the earnings, and the crew divides the rest. For a good night's work, deckhands can earn well over $1,000 and the captain and engineer even more. On a bad night, they might catch enough to cover fuel.In the off-season, the fishermen sew up nets, make repairs and paint the boats — without pay. A few months of the year, they make a little money fishing for sardines. But without squid, there are no big paychecks.As luck would have it, the night's first net bursts with an exceptional haul: 40 tons of squid."Everybody's going to do real well tonight," Jurlin tells the crew.They lower a heavy metal pump into the thick stew, and the catch goes sloshing into the ship's refrigerated wells below deck.Once their catch is stowed, the crewmen hose off and light up cigarettes as the fog moves in.::A half century ago, the sardine was king of the sea.In the 1930s and '40s, the largest fishing industry in the Western Hemisphere centered on California's harvest of the oily, silvery fish. Monterey was its capital, its crowded waterfront the backdrop for John Steinbeck novels such as "Cannery Row."But the boom went bust by mid-century as overfishing brought a devastating collapse.Squid fishing exploded in the 1990s when worldwide demand jumped. Over the last decade, the California Department of Fish and Game has kept the fishery in check with catch limits, a ban on weekend fishing and a cap on the number of squid boats.Squid come and go in cycles, streaming to shore when waters are cold and vanishing during warm El Niño periods. And they live just a year, making it difficult for scientists to assess the health of their population. Conservation groups, in saying current limits are too permissive, point to research saying those huge fluctuations make small species like squid particularly vulnerable to collapse.The industry says California's regulations already guard against overfishing and don't need to be changed.::Standing at the helm in the dark, Jurlin studies a glowing grid of navigation screens and electronic fish finders.He sips coffee and watches for diving birds and sea lions — nature's squid detectors. He talks to himself to stay awake and keeps a running dialogue on the radio with friendly boats to gather intelligence on fishing spots.Like many fishermen here, Jurlin is a descendant of immigrants, born into the profession.His grandfather was an illegal immigrant from Croatia who jumped ship in Canada and made his way to San Pedro to fish almost a century ago. Jurlin's father fished, and his grandmothers and mother packed tuna back when the San Pedro waterfront was alive with canneries.Jurlin started working on Alaskan salmon vessels as a teenager and bought his first boat when he was 21.Over the past 30 years, he and his wife have raised two daughters, bought a condo in downtown Long Beach and a second home in Arizona. Squid has paid for it all.He has staked his future on being able to continue. When the first squid upswing hit 16 years ago, he bought his own seiner. During this boom he put his two sons-in-law aboard to learn the profession."We've been hitting it pretty good, but it's sustainable," he says. "We get a bad rap from the environmentalists. They'll tell us there's no fish, and we'll come out here and see incredible amounts. They say we want to rape and pillage the ocean. But this is our livelihood."As is so often the case lately, Jurlin and his crew are catching so much squid so quickly that it strains buyers in San Pedro, who can only fit so much in their freezers.So tonight, each vessel can load up with just 70 tons before returning to the docks, where workers will pump the squid ashore and slop it into plastic-lined boxes. Forklifts will wheel it into warehouse-sized blast freezers, where it will be prepared for shipment to Asia. From there, it will be processed and shipped around the world, some back to restaurants in California.It's just before midnight when the captain of a fellow squid boat, the Ferrigno Boy, radios to report he has caught too much. Could the Cape Blanco suck up the surplus?"Okey-dokey," Jurlin responds, setting down the radio. "That's it. Another day in paradise."

 

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Anglers Getting Hit with Fishing Closures and Higher Fees

Written by Ed Zieralski | Outdoors Reporter

Ocean fishermen who fish waters off Southern California and Mexico are about to be hit with a double whammy, the likes of which no one has ever seen.In the U.S., a network of fishing closures in the South Coast Region from Point Conception in Santa Barbara to the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego take effect Jan. 1. But even before that, anglers who fish in Mexican waters are likely to see increased fees for a required visa to fish in Mexico. The visa will be required in addition to a Mexican fishing license or permit.Mexico City officials are expected to announce soon some sweeping new regulations regarding visas for foreign fishermen who visit Mexican waters.American officials and representatives have been working the past two months to clarify what additional fees fishermen will need to pay to keep fishing in Mexico, and word Thursday was that an announcement is imminent. The information is expected to spell out the fees and documents necessary to fish in Mexican waters. An official with the Sportfishing Association of California, which represents passenger sport boats in Southern California, confirmed that news is expected very soon.In addition to those extra costs to fish Mexico, ocean anglers also are facing the start of the Marine Life Protection Act’s South Coast fishing closures, set to take effect Jan. 1. Combine those new marine reserves that prohibit fishing with the regularly-scheduled, two-month closure for rockfish, also on Jan. 1, and that’s going to reduce further the fishing grounds. The rockfish closure makes it a triple whammy.Read the rest of the story on the San Diego Union-Tribune.  

Will expanded SoCal marine reserves work?

 

 Written by Mike Lee | Science-and-Environment Reporter

 Hotly contested fishing restrictions take effect across Southern California waters on Sunday, when stretches of ocean offshore of La Jolla, Point Loma and elsewhere will be closed to harvest.New and expanded sanctuaries were designed to improve marine life and coastal ecosystems, but there’s sharp disagreement about how well they will work.That debate has spurred a multimillion-dollar network of research projects designed to look across several species and types of habitats — an initiative that includes an unusual alliance between lobstermen and San Diego scientists.Despite harvesters’ dislike of no-fishing rules, some of them are helping tag tens of thousands of lobsters in the expanded reserve system so their growth and movement patterns can be tracked.“It’s in everyone’s best interest to establish a good baseline,” said Rodger Healy, president of the California Lobster and Trap Fishermen’s Association, who is based in Dana Point. “It seems like it’s working. Hopefully, this is something that is going to be a template for the future.”Like many other recreational and commercial fishermen, Healy distrusted the reserve-setting process, which started in Southern California three years ago and included several emotionally charged public meetings. Ocean “users” said the process was rigged against them, while conservation groups urged larger off-limits zones.In the end, the state Fish and Game Commission adopted 52 marine protected areas and special closures that cover roughly 354 square miles of state waters. That’s about 15 percent of the nearshore region from Point Conception in Santa Barbara County to the U.S.-Mexico border.Efforts by some anglers to invalidate the process in court so far have failed, leaving lobstermen such as San Diego-based Shad Catarius to fret about their livelihoods. He figures he’ll lose a third of his income when traps are outlawed in customary harvest spots and open zones become more crowded.“Instead of there being 100 traps in an area, you could have 200 or 300 traps,” he said. “There’s going to be a lot of tempers out there.”Read the rest of the story on the San Diego Union-Tribune.