Whales May Be Unintentional Victims of Nets

Those mile-long, float-suspended, gill nets that commercial fishermen lay out from sunset to dawn in Southern California’s deep, offshore waters are not only producing a record catch, they also seem to be producing environmental problems.

Southern California commercial fishermen had never previously fished offshore banks and seamounts with mile-long nets, but the result has been enough swordfish to compete with foreign sources, according to the Department of Fish and Game.

Last year a record catch of 4.4 million pounds of broadbill swordfish was landed by Southern California’s commercial fishermen, according to State Fish and Game biologist Rick Klingbeil. The previous record was 2.6 million pounds in 1978. The figures include harpooned and netted fish, but it was the drift gill net fishery that accounted for about 95% of last year’s haul, Klingbeil said.

But the mile-long nets also are entangling migrating gray whales, porpoises and marlin swordfish, which are designated a game fish and not to be sold commercially.

A small whale about 16 feet in length was reported dead in a net about 1 miles off the Oxnard breakwater. A second whale, estimated at from 25 to 30 feet in length, was seen making slow headway under the burden of a net in the San Pedro Channel between Avalon and Long Beach.

Photographs taken from the air by the National Park Service, Channel Islands Harbor, appear to indicate that the larger whale, struggling to swim on a 185-degree heading southwest of the Long Beach breakwater, was wrapped in a gill net. Because of the danger involved, DFG personnel have been ordered not to dive near the whale, and assistance from a boat appears equally difficult.

The entanglement of gray whales in drift gill nets and set gill nets closer to shore has become an increasing problem, said Carol Pillsbury, manager of the Channel Island National Sanctury. She said there have been nine documented instances of whale entanglement, and a 10th has been developing.

The majority of the entanglements seem to be from set gill nets placed in what appears to be the migratory course of some whales.

The difficulty of attempting to release whales from these great monofilament nets was stressed by Pillsbury. She told of a recent release attempt off Dana Point Harbor during which a diver was badly injured. The whale was pregnant. The whale was so disoriented by the net that was cutting into her flesh and by the sound of the rescue helicopter hovering over her that she began to swim northward, although her course had been southward toward Baja California’s lagoons.

The attempt to save her was unsuccessful. She was last seen two weeks later, swimming seaward with the net. Then she disappeared. Presumably, her dead body was blown out to sea during a Santa Ana wind.

Pillsbury suggests that whale entanglement is a serious problem that must be confronted by both marine environmentalists and commercial fishermen. She believes that gill nets, particularly set gill nets, should be banned during the two peak migratory periods, the southern and the northern.

Another environmental problem is beginning to show up in the gill net fishery, which was started several years ago primarily as a thresher shark fishery.

The catch of swordfish was considered an incidental bonus. Thresher shark harvest has dropped from a annual peak of 2.3 million pounds in 1982 to 1.6 million pounds last year. A steady decline of threshers over the past few years, indicating over-fishing, is a trend that has been worrying DFG biologists. There is currently a bill before the legislature that would take the pressure off the thresher shark fishery by imposing certain closures.

Meanwhile, there seems to be good news about a fish that was nearly wiped out by overharvesting during World War II--the California sardine. Experimental DFG trawls in 1984 yielded more sardines than anytime in the last 30 years. The fish are young and less than spawning age, but biologists hope that signs of a comeback will continue. The moratorium on sardines remains in effect.