A Fish Story With a New Angle: Safety

Never mind creationism versus Darwinism--here’s the real source of the fishes in the sea.

It’s a floating dock in Newport Harbor, where volunteers from the Pacific Fisheries Enhancement Foundation on Wednesday took charge of nearly 4,000 3-inch fish that they hope to nurture into marine adolescence, and then freedom in the open ocean.

They do it just for the halibut. And the white sea bass.

“It’s a chance to be able to put something back,” said Jock Albright, who, as then-president of the 800-member Balboa Angling Club, directed construction five years ago of the four-pen “grow-out” facility floating 100 yards from Balboa Peninsula. “I’ve been fishing for 40 years. Some day, we’re going to see white sea bass out there with the abundance we had back in the ‘50s.”

While on the surface it seems an odd enterprise--raising fish to stock the seas--the state-sponsored program has serious aims. Officials hope not only to rejuvenate depleted white sea bass populations, but also develop techniques to counter diminishing stocks of other commercial and game fish, including halibut.

The drop in stocks over time has been dramatic. Sportfishing catches of white sea bass have dropped from 55,000 fish per year in the early ‘50s to about 3,500. Commercial catches have also declined precipitously, state officials have said.

“The whole program is set up to see if it’s possible to enhance wild fish stocks in the ocean,” said Steve Crooke, senior marine biologist for the state Department of Fish and Game in Long Beach, who oversees the project.

Similar programs in Texas and Hawaii have been successful, Crooke said.

“We feel real good about it,” he said. “There’s no reason it shouldn’t work. We’re very good at spawning and rearing fish. Now, we need to rear enough fish, and release and sample the fish being caught, to see what percentage of those fish are hatchery-reared.”

While it’s a state-directed project funded through special assessments on salt-water fishing licenses, volunteers play a crucial role. Members of groups that belong to the United Anglers of California tend to the fish as they grow from minnow size to about 10 inches, where they stand better chances in the ocean of reaching full size--28 inches and longer.

On Wednesday, owners of two private boats ferried the 3-inch fish from Oceanside to Newport Bay, where volunteers from the Pacific Fisheries Enhancement Foundation--an offshoot of the Balboa Angling Club--will tend to them until they’re ready for release sometime this fall.

Mike Niino of Costa Mesa was one of the volunteers on hand, drawn to the project two years ago when he spotted an ad in a fishing magazine while vacationing in the Cayman Islands. He noticed the phone number was from Southern California and called when he returned home.

“It’s just good to get out here after a long day of work,” said Niino, who owns a start-up temporary-employment service.

Transferring the fish is sloppy but fast work. The volunteers borrowed bucket-brigade techniques to ferry nets full of shimmering fish from holding tanks on the boats to pens submerged from the middle of the floating dock. The pens themselves are mostly metal, designed to keep sea lions from treating the facility as a private smorgasbord.

There are 10 such facilities along the coast from the Mexican border to Santa Barbara. Over the past decade some 250,000 white sea bass have been released. Eventually, Crooke said, officials hope to release 400,000 fish per year.

The project began with state legislation adopted in 1983 creating the Ocean Resources Enhancement and Hatchery Program, which a year later began devising techniques for raising fish in sufficient quantities to make a difference in the wild, Crooke said. The annual budget is about $900,000.

The fish are spawned at the Hubbs-Sea World Research Institute in Carlsbad, which was built as part of state-mandated investments by owners of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station to offset destruction of fish and kelp beds by the facility. The state hired Hubbs-Sea World to manage the facility when it opened two years ago.

“We’re dealing with some of the more sensitive stages, eggs and larvae,” said Mark Drawbridge, program manager for Hubbs-Sea World. “They are a lot more delicate when they’re younger, and require some special care, especially food. They eat live food, and we have to supply all that. Once you’ve got a 3-inch fish, they’re a lot more hardy and you can move them out to the coastal areas.”

There, the volunteers take charge, tending pens built by the volunteers.

From Crooke’s standpoint, the program might be a state project, but the private volunteers have been critically important.

“Essentially,” he said, “they allow us to grow the fish out at minimum cost. It couldn’t have developed this far without them, that’s for sure.”