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| Hello there! |
Hello, science enthusiasts! Hello,
animal lovers! Hello, conservationists! Here's part three of your
fifth stream of bubbles containing interesting information from this
little corner of the California coastline. I'm Shelby, and I'm here
to offer some insight on the health and function of some of the most
important features of Northern California's coastal ecosystems.
In this third part of my piece on the
abalone fishery in California, I'm going to just go ahead and present
my full opinion on this subject. Warning: I'm going to use a lot of
anecdotes. Hopefully it won't sound like a rant. Again, even if it's
presented from a perspective of science, it's still just an opinion.
I first found out about the issues
facing the abalone fishery about three years ago, while I was still
an undergrad. I was getting ready to enter a three-day SCUBA
course—which I ended up not getting to finish—and I had to rent
and buy all the gear I was going to learn how to use. I went to a
dive shop and had to pay out the absolute a** for both rental gear
and the stuff I had to buy. While waiting for something, I noticed
that they also sold gear and cards for abalone fishing. There was a
diorama with an unrealistically large fake abalone next to the gear
they were selling. There was a handout next to this diorama as well,
talking about something the Department of Fish and Wildlife was going
to do, or was doing. It was red and flashy; there was definitely a
sense of urgency. When I checked out, the guy helping me asked if I
wanted to be added to their newsletter. I said yes, thinking they
would be a good source of dive practice.
Later on, I got an email from the dive
shop's newsletter. It wasn't what I was expecting. To paraphrase a
lot, the article warned
divers about an upcoming threat by the CDFW to close the 2016 abalone
season. It called to arms all abalone divers who didn't want their
“rights” to be violated. Their sport was under attack; this
closure had to be protested. Being a scientist—even if I hadn't yet
gotten my degree—I was inherently skeptical. I was pretty deep into
wanting to be in the fisheries biology/invertebrate
physiology/fisheries management field at this point. I'd decided my
priority was going to be taking care of our natural resources. I'm
still there now. So, when I was told the fishery was going to close,
my first reaction wasn't,
“How
dare they!”
Instead,
my go to was,
“Well,
there must be a reason.” If a fishery is closed, it's probably
because the species we've been harvesting is no longer plentiful
enough for us to harvest it, at least without it going extinct. There
was no mention of why the season was being closed. It just was, and
it was an affront!
I
didn't get any more information about the abalone fishery closure
until after I'd graduated and become a volunteer intern for some Fish
and Wildlife environmental scientists. My supervisor explained to me,
in detail, the issues our kelp forests have been facing (see previous
blog posts). Long story short, abalone are starving because, purple
urchins are everywhere and eating everything, because sunflower sea
stars are dying from disease, and kelp is dying because climate
change. My first response then was,
“Well,
of course!”
And that was that. I didn't need any other reason to
care about this issue and to want to see it resolved. So, where was
the issue? Why did that dive shop have against the closure?
Here's
the thing; something I've (very generally) noticed about people, at
least those who aren't at least somehow interested in the science of
the world around them, don't give much thought to the stuff they use,
especially if its a living resource. This might not come as a
surprise to most of you; we've definitely seen over the years direct
results of this kind of thinking. But it seems to be especially
prevalent in fisheries, or in the harvest of marine resources (again,
very generally; my dad is a fisherman who appreciates healthy
management). They tend to be very at odds with fishery management
efforts, resisting restrictions and resenting the people drafting and
enforcing them. Sometimes this is warranted, since CDFW people in
positions of power—like wardens and officers—abuse their
authority like many other law enforcement members, especially in the
recreational sector. These few bad apples end up giving the mere idea
of fisheries management a bad reputation.
Thanks
to this tainted relationship between the CDFW and fishermen,
something as radical a season closure comes across as an attack on
peoples' rights. It doesn't matter how the animals themselves are
doing, if their populations are healthy or not; fishing is a right!
Ironic, given how quickly fishermen are ready to blame Fish and
Wildlife when the fishing starts going bad.
This
probably wouldn't be such an issue if people actually went to the
effort of learning about why the abalone are in trouble; the
information is readily available. Yet no one seems to want to learn
about it. I had a conversation with an older family member last
summer about this subject that, basically, went like this:
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| Literally the face he made while I explained everything. |
This coming from a guy who doesn't
think climate change is real.
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| I mean, really. |
It's like people don't want to hear
about this stuff. Now, to be very, very fair, the main complaining
crowd seems to be made up of people who only occasionally go abalone
fishing. They love it, sure, but maybe they don't do it very
regularly; it takes travel and money for many, since the bulk of
recreational fishing takes place up here in Sonoma and Mendocino
county. I say this because a lot of the articles and information put
out by Fish and Wildlife itself takes anecdotal evidence from regular
abalone fishermen, the kind that go out multiple times every season.
They have seen the changes affecting these resources over the last
couple of years; they've seen the starving animals, the empty shells,
the vanished kelp, the barren rock. These people have been quoted
agreeing with the need to close the season. Everyone else clings to
the nostalgia and ideal of the fishery; they don't want to believe
anything could be wrong because they don't “see it.”
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| You probably wouldn't guess that the kelp forests have turned into urchin barrens covered in dead abalone just by looking at it from here (this is an old picture), right? Source: http://www.shorediving.com/Earth/USA_West/CalN/Van_Damme/ |
Now, there is some reasoning behind
this, albeit a bit misguided. As I've shown in the last two posts,
the abalone fishery has gone through a lot of ups and downs as long
as its been a thing. The commercial season was a huge industry all
the way up until the 1990s; there are still people who used to work
in that field. In fact, they've been The recreational fishery then
became the only way people were able to harvest these animals
themselves. It gained popularity; it was a sport that people enjoyed
taking part in. Then, it gets ripped away, only two decades after the
loss of the commercial fishery. It must feel like a blow.
But there's being upset at change, and
then there's displaced anger and denial. As I've seen while
researching the history of this fishery, those in charge of managing
it have only recently been motivated to take steps to do so. In the
past, when one abalone species grew scarce, people just moved on to a
more plentiful species. When that one ran out, they moved on to the
next, and so on. It's why white abalone (a southern species) were put
on the endangered species list in 2001, and their fishery was closed
indefinitely. They were harvested pretty uncontrollably (even after
the commercial fishery had been closed) for years, and then they fell
prey to withering syndrome, a muscle-eating disease that is still a
problem for abalone today. The fishery wasn't given the break it
needed to let the animals deal with the disease, and they were nearly
driven to extinction. Without them, people turned to red abalone. Now
they're in trouble too. This phenomena is called 'serial depletion';
the continuous using up of a resource in a repetitive pattern.
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| I mean, there'll always be another species, right? Source: http://www.asnailsodyssey.com/LEARNABOUT/ABALONE/abalOver.php |
In all my experience in and learning
about fisheries, especially with the abalone fishery, I've come to an
unfortunate conclusion. I almost feel foolish for saying it, because
it might seem pretty obvious given what we know today, but somehow I
still felt pretty dismayed when I realized this. People don't really
give thought to what they use. To me, the mentality when using
animals that we don't cultivate should be,
“Well, I want to use this thing.
Therefore, I want it around.”
Easy, right? When you want to keep
using something, you should want to take care of it. However, I've
come to realize that the mentality of using things today is the same
as it was when we hunted the woolly mammoth, Irish elk, Stellar's sea
cow, great auk, dodo, pink duck, and passenger pigeon to extinction.
“Gotta get it while it's still
there; at this rate, it'll be gone!”
That's how serial depletion
works; grab as much as you can while its still around, and when it's
gone, move on to the next species. It's not about the thing you're
using; its the fact that you are using it. People view using
something as a right more often enough, not a privilege. It doesn't
matter if the abalone are starving; the fishery belongs to the ab
divers. If Fish and Wildlife wants to regulate the fishery, they're
infringing on the the divers' rights. It's not the animals; it's the
principle.
Oddly
enough, the only time I've seen this 'principle' idea applied to the
mentality of keeping the thing you want to use around came from
Native Alaskans. According to a marine physiology professor I had in
college, Native Alaskans are all about conservation efforts for right
and bowhead whales, but not for the reason you think. They want to
protect the whales not because, well, the whales need protecting, but
because they want to keep hunting them. They view the whales as
theirs; they belong to the natives. Thus, in order to be able to keep
hunting them, they want their populations maintained. It's less about
the whales and more about the tradition and cultural significance
they represent. Sounds....odd, right? Well, it might be a bit
misguided, but it's better than you can expect from most people. Same
idea applies to rhino and elephant cultivators in Africa. They work
to protect the species from poachers and make sure they have enough
food, water, and land to survive. But they don't do this out of the
goodness of their hearts; they do it to cultivate the animals for
trophy hunting. They make money from trophy hunters who pay to hunt
these large animals. In turn, only animals that aren't contributing
to the population, like those who can't breed anymore or are sick
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUA8i5S0YMU).
Again, not ideal but at least its something.
That's why I did the second part of
this blog series on the economic impact of the abalone fishery
because right now, that seems to be the only way many people are
willing to care. It doesn't matter what part an animal plays in the
food web; if we can't see a benefit for us, why should we care? But
then if we can't have it, it's injustice.
That....all of this...to me, seems
like utter nonsense.
I'd like to know what the people
reading this think. Please comment your thoughts on this subject, if
not there, then on my Facebook page.
Stay curious.
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| "Sea" you later! |
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