Conserve Now, Fish Later

Fishermen trawling the edges of ocean areas where fishing is banned or restricted--from Cape Canaveral to New England’s Georges Bank and marine reserves in South Africa and New Zealand--are rewarded with more abundant catches of larger fish.

Aside from more and bigger fish, ocean reserves often have a greater variety of marine life than other waters, according to a UC Santa Barbara study.

This same happy “spillover effect” could be expected in Southern California if state officials set aside 25% of the waters around the Channel Islands as “no take” zones where fishing is banned, and if federal and state managers hold firm against weakening an emergency ban on taking threatened rockfish that was imposed only this summer.

The rockfish ban has made 8,500 square miles of California’s continental shelf off-limits to fishing for rockfish and ling cod. These fish have been decimated not only because they are dinner table favorites--known as red snapper--but also because they don’t begin to reproduce until they are older than most other species; catching younger rockfish is causing the population to crash because fewer adults survive to reproduce.

Scientists predict that both species will plunge toward extinction if no ban is in place. Next month, the federal Pacific Fishery Management Council will decide whether to extend the ban into next year. It will take about 10 years to even begin to see recovery on such slow-growing species, so it makes no sense to consider easing it.

The state Fish and Game Department, which is responsible for drafting rules to enforce the ban, is under pressure from commercial fishermen to carve out loopholes. It too should hold firm.

The separate plan to create a string of no-fishing zones off the Channel Islands, near Santa Barbara, comes before the state Fish and Game Commission in December. It is the product of years of discussion with commercial and recreational fishermen, state and federal officials and environmentalists.

The plan doesn’t please everyone, but based on experience in Florida and elsewhere, it should protect kelp beds, plankton blooms, crabs, abalone, whales, dolphins and the many species of fish that flourish in the imperiled, unique underwater environment where warm and cold ocean streams meet off California.

California’s commercial and sport fishing industries, with revenues of $1.4 billion annually, are important economic engines. Many fishermen and sport guides, fearing loss of livelihood, understandably oppose new limits. Like loggers now cutting ever-smaller and less profitable trees, California’s fishermen are being asked to make short-term trade-offs to secure their future economic survival. It’s hard, but there’s no better choice.