Ban Takes Bite Out of Anglers

Oxnard charter boat captain Paul Rich knows a thing or two about navigating rough seas, but says he is struggling to find his way through the stormy financial waters now swirling around him.

For the last seven months, Rich has spent more time sitting on the dock at Channel Islands Harbor than leading recreational fishing trips, as a result of government restrictions on what ocean anglers can catch and where they can drop their sinkers.

Like many fishermen, Rich hopes revenue from a bustling summer season will make up for lost time. But he worries that conservation efforts aimed at protecting sea creatures are squeezing the life out of his industry.

“We barely squeak through,” said the 33-year-old Rich, who says a federal ban on bottom fishing for rockfish gutted his winter income.

“I actually had to file for unemployment and collect food stamps,” Rich said. “I’ve always been a hard-working guy and paid my taxes

In the last year, in an effort to give depleted species a chance to recover from years of excessive fishing, state and federal agencies have taken significant steps to protect marine life along the California coast.

Federal officials issued an emergency ban on catching rockfish, commonly sold as Pacific red snapper, last July after biologists determined that the bottom dwellers were edging toward extinction.

Three months later, the California Fish and Game Commission permanently banned fishing, trapping and harvesting of any marine species in 10 zones around the five Channel Islands and restricted fishing in two other areas. The decision, which went into effect in April, created the largest network of marine reserves off the West Coast.

Environmentalists and state and federal biologists believe the limits will alleviate the strain on coastal ecosystems and result in an abundance of marine life in years to come. And they note that 80% of state waters around the islands remain open to fishing.

“It is not like people don’t have anything to fish for and aren’t able to go out and enjoy fishing,” said John Ugoretz, a senior marine biologist for the California Department of Fish and Game.

But commercial and sport fishermen, who vehemently opposed the reserve system, dispute reports that fish populations are depleted, and say the new limits are threatening their livelihoods. They have sued to abolish the system.

“They took the prime fishing areas, and the impacts are astronomical,” said Oxnard-based commercial fisherman Tim Athens, who believes state officials have underestimated the potential economic effects. “The whole plan is inept. It’s so frustrating what they did.”

Nowhere is the discontent more evident than in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, where fishermen ply their trade in the waters along the coast and just off the Channel Islands.

According to an economic study prepared for the Fish and Game Commission, commercial fishermen harvested millions of pounds of squid, sea urchin, spiny lobster, prawns and crab in the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary in 1999.

The study showed that a record squid haul that year accounted for about 62% of the national supply of squid and about 2% of the world supply.

In addition, the sanctuary is among the most popular recreational fishing areas along the West Coast, in large part because of weather and sea conditions that allow for year-round fishing.

Charter boat operators say the rockfish ban has devastated their trade, and they worry about the effects of the new reserves.

“We’re being hit all over the place,” said Debi Kohr, who owns Captain Hook’s Sportfishing at Channel Islands Harbor with her husband, Ken.

They went eight months without any income because of the rockfish ban, she said, forcing them to lay off half a dozen employees and raise prices. Debi took a second job to make ends meet.

The couple fear they could lose about $80,000 this year because of the restrictions.

Part of the problem, Ken Kohr said, is a misperception that the islands are closed entirely to fishing, when only about 20% of state waters are off limits.

“They have made it so confusing, people say, ‘Forget it, I’ll go golfing,’ ” he said, while standing in his harbor-side tackle shop where fishing poles hang from the ceiling and brightly colored lures dangle from the walls.

Kohr said he and his wife have invested about $600,000 in the business -- too much to simply walk away.

“The problem with this business is, a whole bunch of us have our own money invested,” he said. “If I walk away, I have zero.”

He figures they can adapt to the marine reserves, but believes an ongoing rockfish ban and potential expansion of the reserves into federal waters would be enough to destroy the business.

Supporters of the reserve system caution that it is too soon to gauge the effect on the fishing industry.

They also say the economic blow to fishermen won’t be severe, especially when weighed against the long-term benefits of conservation.

“We have been working with the local community to develop an economic and biological monitoring program,” said Sean Hastings, resource protection coordinator for the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary. “Reserves will take awhile to have an effect biologically. Economically, we haven’t heard of any major impacts.”

Ugoretz, the state biologist, acknowledged that fishermen must adapt to regulatory changes. But he also stressed that reserves in other areas have proved that struggling species can recover if given time and space, benefiting both the environment and the fishing industry.

“From the department’s standpoint, we are trying to provide sustainable use of valuable resources,” Ugoretz said. “The potential exists for species to become overfished, and as we’ve seen in the past, numbers can decline precipitately, and we want to avoid that.”

Over the next year or two, federal officials will decide whether to expand the reserves into federal waters, potentially closing 426 square miles of ocean to fishing. Such a move would create the largest complex of marine reserves in the continental United States.

The proposal has already met resistance from the fishing industry. Several anglers turned out at a June 12 public meeting in Santa Barbara to voice concern about the plan.

“The sport fishermen are not going to go for this,” said Ace Carter, a recreational fisherman and tackle store manager. “They are in a general state of rebellion now.”

But supporters of the state reserve system encouraged federal officials to expand the zones, saying marine reserves are the best hope for reversing damage to fragile ecosystems and preserving ocean wilderness for future generations.

“We don’t get a do-over on this,” said recreational diver Stacey Kimsey.