ABALONE SEASON STALLED — AGAIN
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife announced March 19 that the North Coast abalone season will remain closed until April 1, 2026. The moratorium — which began in 2017 — was expected to lift April 1, 2021. At its peak, the abalone industry was worth approximately $55 million to California’s economy.
The North Coast fishery, which is recreational only, and extends from San Francisco in the south to the Oregon border in the north, has been closed for nearly four years due to the reduction of abalone stock, caused by the decline of the kelp forest and sea urchin barrens.
“The red abalone catch is being reduced because surveys conducted by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife found that red abalone populations in deeper waters are on the decline due to unfavorable environmental conditions,” stated a press release on the CDFW website, at cdfgnews.wordpress.com. “(The) growth of kelp — a major food source for abalone — has declined significantly. Dramatic increases in purple sea urchin populations have further reduced the food available for abalone.”
Sonke Mastrup, the Environmental Program Manager for Invertebrates at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, was tasked with developing a limited access fishing plan, which should have allowed the abalone population to recover by 2021, but the stock did not meet the state’s requirements for reopening.
According to Mastrup, the CDFW is planning on reopening the season at some point when the stock reaches its recovery milestones.
“We’re keeping our fingers
crossed the ocean conditions continue to improve,” Mastrup said. “The unfortunate part with abalone is that it takes them almost 12 years to go from egg to legal abalone — so there’s a big lag, and recovery is going to be very slow.”
The proposed program will be modeled after the department’s big game permit program, and includes strict limits and a lottery system for permitting. It may also be restricted by location, but has yet to be approved by the state and will be part of the Fishery Management Plan. A public hearing is planned for this summer, with a possible approval date at the December 2021 Fish and Wildlife Commission Hearing.
“Climate change has created a less certain environment which forces us to address the fishery in a different way. You have to be precautionary when you do not know what will happen,” Mastrup said in 2018. “The re-entry would be limited allowing recovery to continue.”
He confirmed that information still stands, but added that they “are starting to see spotty kelp recovery and hopes that we are turning a corner. Nature is starting to smooth things out.”
Mastrup also said the CDFW is looking for indications that the existing abalone is strong enough to reproduce, and that the CDFW wants to see several years of reproduction before allowing any adults to be harvested.
For abalone fishers, there may be good news lurking along the South Coast fishery: The commercial abalone fishery — which extends from San Francisco south to the Mexican border — was closed by the state legislature in the 1990s, and has since seen some recovery of green abalone.
The CDFW is formalizing surveys to ascertain the extent of the 30-year recovery along California’s southern shores. Mastrup explained the closure there was initiated after the stock was nearly totally depleted, while the North Coast fishery was shut down while there were still enough adult red abalone to rebuild. The south also has more human stresses and subsequently has a larger poaching problem than the north and those things all need to be taken into account, he said.
“Everybody’s unhappy, but nobody wants to see the stock depleted to the point where it’s no good for anybody,” he said. “The good news is we have a good, surviving stock of adults. We’re in better cond than (Southern California’s fishery) when it closed. We just need the kelp to come back in abundance.”
In a study published by CDFW in 2018, approximately 35,000 fishers visited Mendocino and Sonoma each year from 2000 to 2014, which generated from $24 million to $44 million in recreational value.
During the fishery’s initial closure, the Albion RV Park reported a 20 percent reduction in income and the local diving shop closed completely in 2020. Pomo RV Park owner Janet Carter in Fort Bragg estimates that her business lost 10% after the closure. However, she said she expects to fill up this season due to the pent-up demand caused by the pandemic. The Mendocino Tourism Commission said it also expects local parks to reach capacity this summer.