I normally don’t get in to politics but this one I can’t ignore.
I am a fisherman and spear-fish in the local waters of Malibu an average of 5 times per month for the last 25 years. I enjoy bringing fresh seafood home from the ocean and look forward to the day I can teach my son how to fish. I love the fact that I know exactly where my fish comes from and that I don’t buy it from a market. I may not be an expert with a degree in Marine Biology but I do spend enough time underwater that I can tell you that our local fish populations are healthy. One of my favorite fish is the White Sea Bass, which many years ago was a depleted fishery. Thanks to minimum size restrictions, limited take (only one fish per day most of the year), AND a hatchery program (run mainly by fisherman), the WSB has made an incredible recovery. I see massive schools of fish on most dives that I make and the world record fish was taken in Malibu this year! This recovery happened because those who care most about the fishery got involved and made sure that the resource would be there for them to enjoy. This was done with science and management. Those two things are what I most want to used to manage the local fisheries. The complete shut down of an area, which the MLPA crowd wants, makes no sense to me at all.
As I was leaving the Chili Cook Off on Friday night a woman with an MLPA shirt asked me to sign a petition. I told her I would not sign it because it takes away my ability to fish in certain areas of Malibu. She then asked if I’d be ok with an exclusion of no take from motorized craft. I responded by saying, ” What about the grandpa who takes his grandson out once per year? What good would it do to excluded him? Surely there are kayakers who spend 50 days on the water each year. How is that fair.” She didn’t respond but got upset and threw out this emotional, fear-laden statement…”You know shark populations are a ten percent!” “Oh yeah?” I say. ” Where are they ten percent? The whole world? Malibu? Which Species? Great Whites? All?” She got frustrated when I demanded facts she stormed off. Give me real data, not alarmist headlines. For example, if scientist were able to demonstrate that the halibut fishery was in danger from over fishing and not other environmental factors like acidifcation or pollution, than I’d be the first to pay a few extra bucks on a license that I knew went to a hatchery program, dropped the bag limit from 3 to 1, or raised the minimum size from 22 inches to 26 but not larger than 38 (slot size). .
The Marine Life Protection Act sounds really nice and I’m sure it makes people feel good that they are “protecting life” but let’s not ignore facts and lets use science, not emotion, to figure out what needs to be managed, not closed. Please take a moment to read the facts below and click the peer review article below to read.
Peer Review of Ecotrust MLPA Initiative Products
by Bonnie J. McCay, Ph.D. Caroline Pomeroy, PhD Kevin St. Martin, PhD
Coordinated by Barbara L. E. Walker, PhD
MLPA FACT SHEET
There are currently no depleted or endangered fish species in the area: When pressed, the California Department of Fish and Game could not name one fish species that was depleted.
There is only one peer-reviewed scientific study produced by the MLPA science team: This study by Dr. Ray Hilborn shows that California’s fisheries are the second least exploited in the World, behind new Zealand. California and New Zealand are the only two that have substantially healthy fish stocks. The study recognizes that the fish stocks are recovering beautifully on their own through well managed size and count limits, and MPA’s are expensive, unproductive and unnecessary.
The plan ignores fisheries management as an effective tool for preventing overfishing: The array of reserves should not be a surrogate for fisheries management. If there is over-fishing, then the Department of Fish and Game is not doing its job.
The cost is unsustainable at the current estimate of $30-40 million: The State is essentially bankrupt. The Department of Fish and Game admits is currently does not have the resources to manage the huge array of closures. The net effect is that honest fishermen will stay out of reserves, but poachers will not.
Recreational fishermen that pay state license fees to fish for consumption should have the right to consume the best quality fish available to them: These closures appear to be designed to completely shut down fishing activities based on ideology instead of reasonable protection in view of social/economic impact to the public.
These closures, which occur underwater, will not increase tourism to the area since most tourists do not go on the water or in it to recreate except to fish: Swimmers, surfers, and boaters will never see any effects of these reserves, only fishermen and divers.
We as fishermen should not be expected to pay for the management of waters we have no access to: We will not pay for this alone, we expect that the funding must come from the general fund and the public as a whole.
None of the other contributors to habitat and fish declines besides fishing are addressed. Would it not make sense to investigate a few of these?
Water Pollution, Water Temperature Changes, Boat Anchoring, Resurgence of marine mammals, sea lions and sea otters, Ocean Acidification, Pollution from coastal streams, Pollution from Electrical plants and Desalination plants
By closing large areas to fishing, those areas that are not closed will receive more pressure thus causing the type of damage the act seeks to prevent. The proposed closures are the majority of excellent fishing areas. The same amount of fishermen will be crowded into areas with minimal habitat and fewer fish, damaging the already extremely fragile areas. This is counteractive to the goals of the MLPA. “When fishery management includes quotas, the use of MPAs will not reduce the volume of fish taken; it will only change the geographical distribution of the take. It does not require a complicated population model to know that the increase in biomass inside of MPAs will be roughly balanced by the decrease in biomass outside.”
This one is the graph from Dr Ray Hilborn’s co-authored study. This is from the only peer reviewed study in the entire MLPA process, and as you can see it says that CA has an extremely low exploitation rate. The exploitation rate in California is second only to New Zealand. Published in ScienceMag.Org
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