3 Dead Sea Lions Found; Gill Net Blamed

Three dead sea lions washed ashore Wednesday in Sunset Beach, and a federal official said the mammals were probably drowned in commercial fishermen’s gill nets.

“About 99% of the sea lion deaths we investigated earlier this year, when there was a rash of sea lions washing ashore between Seal Beach and Huntington Beach, all were caused by gill nets,” said Joe Cordaro, a marine biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service in Los Angeles.

Cordaro said that all the information he received about the dead sea lions found Wednesday indicated that their deaths occurred far out in the ocean and probably after they had been caught in gill nets.

Action by Allen

The new deaths of sea lions in Orange County waters emphasize the need for state legislation limiting the use of gill nets, Assemblywoman Doris Allen (R-Cypress) said.

Gill nets are narrow-weave devices that are set upright in the water to catch fish by entangling their gills in the meshes. The nets are already banned from most of Northern California’s ocean waters, Allen said.

“The sea lions and other mammals, such as porpoises and harbor seals, that become trapped in gill nets die horrible deaths,” Allen said in a telephone interview from her Sacramento office. “I think my bill to move the gill nets out of our coastal waters is the most important environmental piece of legislation before the Legislature this year,” she added.

Allen has introduced a measure, Assembly Bill 1, that would ban most uses of gill nets in waters heavily populated by marine mammals. The bill would set up a “Marine Resource Protection Zone” from the coastline to 3 miles out in the ocean, ranging from Point Arguello to the Mexican border. The zone would also include waters of less that 70 fathoms around the Channel Islands.

Says Other Creatures Imperiled

“The restrictions are needed because gill nets kill thousands of marine mammals--dolphins, sea lions and seals--each year,” Allen said. “Gill nets also imperil the stocks of halibut, white sea bass and other populations through overfishing.”

Allen’s bill proposes to raise funds to compensate commercial fishermen by a new $3 “Marine Resource Protection Stamp” to be required of people fishing in ocean waters in the state. The $3 would be in addition to the $11 charge now required for a state ocean-water fishing license, Allen said. The new stamp would be sold only through 1993 and would not be required of one-day fishing permits, so as not to affect tourism, Allen said.

The stamp is projected to raise $4 million to $5 million during its existence, Allen said. “The money raised would be used to buy out those gill-net fishermen fishing within the 3-mile Marine Resources Protection Zone,” she explained. “This compensation will provide commercial fishermen the investment funds needed to switch to alternative gear that is less destructive to the marine environment.”

But Nello Castagnola, president of the California Gillnetters Assn., said the organization is opposed to Allen’s bill. “It’s the same old stuff we’ve been fighting for years,” he said. “Of course we’re opposed to it.”

Allen said the first hearing on her bill is scheduled for Tuesday by the Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee. She said many environmentalists and sports-fishing advocates favor the legislation.

One prominent Orange County environmentalist, Dennis Kelly, a professor of marine biology at Orange Coast College, said Wednesday that he enthusiastically endorses Allen’s bill.

“As one who has seen what happens to mammals who become trapped in gill nets, I can tell you it is very unpleasant,” Kelly said. “Those mammals are very intelligent beings, and they die slow, agonizing deaths when they become trapped in gill nets. I would really like to see it stopped, and I certainly support Assemblywoman Allen’s bill.”