Ilsa Setziol
August 21, 2007
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Three years ago, California lawmakers created an ocean protection council. Its job was to improve the state's stewardship of the sea. One of its conclusions was that resource managers need to look at the bigger picture. KPCC's Ilsa Setziol sailed out from Morro Bay near San Luis Obispo with marine researchers who are trying to see the whole ocean picture.
Ilsa Setziol: Before dawn, a fishing boat cuts across Morro Bay.
Setziol (on boat): We're pulling out of the harbor on the Kathryn H. The waters are still and black.
[Sound of boat engine rumbling]
Setziol: On board are two chain-smoking fishermen, and a couple of sleepy graduate students. The boat veers north. The fishermen bait cages with squid, and toss the cages overboard. They hit the water with a splash and sink. Fisherman Tom Hafer says they're targeting fish called cabazon.
Tom Hafer: We catch them alive, keep 'em alive. They get shipped to anywhere. L.A., Las Vegas.
Setziol: High-end seafood restaurants?
Hafer: Sushi bars, restaurants that have live tanks.
Setziol: But today, the fish are off the hook. The crew will tag them and return them to the ocean. The fishermen are helping researchers at Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo learn about cabazon. It's part of an effort to understand how ocean waters, marine life, and human activities, including fishing, interact.
Graduate student Dave Rasmussen says this way of studying fish could help California do a better job of protecting the ocean.
Dave Rasmussen: Typically, they just managed one species at a time without looking at the whole ecosystem. And now, it's kind of shifting toward whole ecosystem wide. If you take out one species, what's happening to the rest of 'em? At least this way, you can kind of determine what fishing as a whole is doing to the ocean, instead of just what it's doing to a certain species. If we get rid of these cabazon, something else might move in that might not be as beneficial and might harm the ecosystem.
Setziol: This wide-focus approach to ocean protection is called "ecosystem-based management." Jeremy Jackson is a marine ecologist at UC San Diego.
Jeremy Jackson: Ecosystem-based management is what we do in national parks, or national forests, when we say, "You know, you can't just clear-cut everything." You have to think about how much you take out, and leave enough behind so all the organisms can still be there in some kind of reasonable abundance.
Setziol: Jackson says that should mean more restrictions on some kinds of fishing, such as "bottom trawling" – dragging heavy nets along the sea floor. It could also mean more "marine reserves" – areas where most or all fishing is banned. It's one reason many fishermen like Tom Hafer are wary of ecosystem-based management.
Hafer: So if that's what that means, then I'm not for that at all. I'm into doing research, finding out what's going on down there; but I'm not into putting in a bunch of "no take" zones all over California.
Setziol: Hafer doesn't oppose all reserves, but he thinks the recently approved "no take" zone for the central California coast is too big.
After a couple of hours, the fishermen reel in the traps. The winches grind away as they pull up the cages. Tom Hafer pulls out a cabazon. It's both fierce and comical. Some Asian Americans call it "dragon fish" because of its spiny dorsal fin. The cabazon is mottled brown on the outside, but a gaping mouth reveals aqua-green flesh – and interesting sound.
Hafer: That's his teeth grinding.
Setziol: As they weigh and measure the squirming fish, grad student researcher Dave Rasmussen explains that cabazon have two teeth in their throat. They use them to pulverize shellfish and other prey – and, it seems, threaten their enemies. During a break in the action, fisherman Tom Hafer says ecosystem management would require a far better understanding of the sea.
Hafer: The ocean's a big place. To know what's really going on underneath the ocean, it's going to take a lot of doing. We're talkin' underwater. We're not gonna be able to go down there and look, like land-based eco-management. Everything's always changing in the ocean.
Setziol: But ecologist Jeremy Jackson says regulators shouldn't wait around for more data.
Jackson: Everything we know about fisheries tells us that business as usual has been a disaster. The National Marine Fisheries Service manages more than a couple hundred fisheries. Most of the species of fish for which it has adequate data are legally over-fished, or threatened, or showing signs of decline.
Setziol: California is moving ahead on some ecosystem-based initiatives, including a network of reserves. But the state only has jurisdiction over the three-and-a-half miles of water closest shore. The feds recently expanded a reserve around parts of the north Channel Islands. But when Congress reauthorized the federal fishing code last year, legislators left out all reference to ecosystem-based management.
