Drive Gains for Initiative to Restrict Gill Net Fishing

Proponents of an initiative to extend a ban on gill net fishing to Southern California coastal waters announced Thursday that they have gathered more than 150,000 signatures to put the measure on the November ballot.

Assemblywoman Doris Allen (R-Cypress) said 950,000 signatures are needed by early May to qualify the initiative. The proposal is opposed, in large measure, by the commercial fishing and seafood processing industry, which uses the nets to catch halibut, white sea bass and shark in large quantities.

The proposed ban would prohibit gill net fishing within three miles of the coast from Point Conception to the Mexican Border, and within one mile of any of the Channel Islands off Santa Barbara. The initiative also would make permanent a similar ban on the fine-mesh nets along the central and northern California coast.

Allen launched the initiative drive in mid-December after several legislative attempts to restrict the use of gill nets failed. Limits on the use of the nets have long been sought by sport fishermen and environmentalists, who claim that fish populations are being depleted and that dolphins, porpoises and other marine mammals are being destroyed when they are inadvertently caught in the nets.

A year ago, state officials blamed gill nets for the deaths of more than 70 sea lions that washed ashore in Orange County during a three-week span.

“The time is now to once and for all to rid California’s waters of the destructive practice of gill net fishing,” Allen told members of a Long Beach tuna fishing club that donated $20,000 to the signature-gathering effort. “It is cruel the way these mammals become entangled in this net and die.”

According to the most current figures available from the state Department of Fish and Game, 6,500 sea lions, harbor seals and harbor porpoises were killed in gill nets and similar devices in 1986-1987.

But industry spokesmen said Allen and others have exaggerated the numbers of mammals killed by the nets to rally support for a ban that would destroy the gill net fishing industry. About 200 gill net fishermen operate in Southern California, mostly out of San Pedro and Ventura harbors, and some say they would be out of business if the gill net ban is passed.

Seafood wholesalers also predicted that limiting gill net fishing would drive up the price of fresh fish in local markets.

“If that ban goes through, prices will go sky high,” said Rob Ross, executive director of the California Fisheries and Seafood Institute, a lobbying group for fish processors. “It is a destructive kind of law that will only put people out of work.”