The Transect Line – January/February 2015

Historically, Native Americans fished abalone along the entire coast of California. The first commercial fishery was established in the 1850s by Chinese Americans. These fishermen mainly targeted green and black abalone and their catch peaked in 1879 with 4.1 million pounds. The Chinese-American fishermen collected abalone in shallow water and by 1900, the first regulations were placed on abalone fishing and the shallow water fishery was closed to commercial harvest [DFW, 2001]. Soon after this closure Japanese divers started exploiting the subtidal abalone stocks, first by free diving then by hard hat diving. In 1901 the first size limit was introduced, requiring all abalone to be 15 inches in circumference. In 1909 a commercial fishing license program was established and later a variety of regulation efforts went into effect including catch limits, gear restrictions, open/closed areas as well as open/closed seasons [DFW, 2003]. In 1913 the abalone fishery in southern California was closed, thus forcing the effort northward. From 1916 to 1935 the catch steadily increased to a peak of 3.9 million pounds (see chart) and then declined to 164,000 pounds in 1942 as fishermen of Japanese heritage were relocated during WWII [DFW, 2001]. In 1943 the southern California fishery was reopened to boost wartime food productions [DFW, 2001] and remained open until 1996 [DFW 2003]. In 1949 the commercial abalone fishery in northern California closed from San Francisco to the California-Oregon border [DFW, 2003] due to dramatic declines [DFW, 2005]. The abalone catch experienced a second peak in 1957 with 5.4 million pounds but by 1969 the fishery was in rapid decline [DFW, 2001]. In 1996 abalone catch had fallen to 229,500 pounds; roughly 4% of the peak catch and the commercial fishery was closed statewide [DFW,2001].

Initially all abalone were managed as a single fishery, which made it difficult to address the collapse of a single species since the number of abalone caught remained stable as fishermen moved from one species to another [DFW, 2001; DFW, 2003]. This process, known as serial depletion, only becomes apparent when the catch is recorded separately for each species. From 1952 to 1968 in southern California, the decline in the number of pink abalone caught was offset by an increase in the number of red abalone brought in. In 1971, size regulations were placed on the pink abalone resulting in an abrupt decline in the number caught. However this drop was masked in overall catch data by an increase in green abalone catch. The red abalone catch began to decline in 1968 but this decline was masked by an increase in the number of green, black and white abalone caught [DFW, 2003; DFW, 2010].

The Abalone Recovery and Management Plan (AMRP) pinpoints some of the reasons for the failure of abalone fisheries. The AMRP states that the management effort was limited to placing limits on size to protect the population…

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In January, eighteen students from the University of Minnesota traveled to the Bay Islands of Honduras as part of a Coral Reef Ecology course students can take as part of the university’s new Marine Biology degree program. Students participated in a weekly seminar during the fall 2014 semester where they learned about Reef Ecology and in December of 2014, the course wrapped up with the classroom portion of the Reef Check EcoDiver training course. EcoDiver Course Director Professor James Hewlett led the training and along with Dr. James and Sehoya Cotner, helped prepare the students for the field portion of their course which took place at Anthony’s Key Resort on the island of Roatan. Roatan’s reefs are part of the Mesoamerican Reef region in the western Caribbean, which is the largest barrier reef in the Western Hemisphere, stretching nearly 700 miles from the northern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula down through the Honduran Bay Islands.

The EcoDiver field training was integrated into the field course so that students could utilize their training as part of their own individual research projects. In addition to their training, students were provided opportunities to further their education as part of a series of workshops from Jennifer Keck, who serves as the Education and Research Coordinator at the Roatan Institute for Marine Sciences (RIMS). At the workshops, students were introduced to the biology of sea turtles and dolphins, learned about ongoing research at RIMS, and were provided opportunities to practice their fish and invertebrate identification skills. Many of the students were newly certified in SCUBA and were given many opportunities to practice their new skill during a week of spectacular diving on the west end of Roatan. After finalizing their training, the group was able to complete two full Reef Check surveys along a portion of the reef that students were using for their research projects.

The Caribbean Sea rewarded the new EcoDivers on the last day of the course. As the students were returning to the resort from their last day of diving, three whale sharks appeared on the horizon. For the next hour, students were able to snorkel alongside these amazing creatures – an experience that several students described as “life changing.” In the end, the course produced 18 new certified EcoDivers and a new group of ambassadors of the ocean. For more information on the University of Minnesota degree program, visit http://cbs.umn.edu/learn/undergraduates/cbs-minors/marine-biology or contact Dr. Sehoya Cotner.

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