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Home > Fish and Wildlife Service News >
California Department of Fish and Game
Popular Abalone Sport Fishery Slated to Open April 1California Department of Fish and Game — 3/28/2006"Currently the north coast abalone resource appears healthy with densities well above the criteria for maintaining the current level of take," said Ian Taniguchi, DFG marine biologist. "But in order to manage this resource at its current sustainable level we need divers to accurately record the number of abalone harvested, as well as the time, date, and location after each dive." Divers play an important role in managing California's abalone fishery, says Taniguchi. Information processed from Abalone Permit Report Cards provides data that, combined with a variety of other surveys (creel surveys and fishery independent scuba surveys), helps the DFG and the Fish and Game Commission to set bag limits and seasons. "The entire management strategy, surveys and punch card information allows us to keep tabs on the health of abalone populations so that we can provide this resource to Californians well into the future," Taniguchi said. California 2006 Sport Fishing Regulations for abalone are as follows:
Abalone cling to rocks, from wave-swept intertidal ledges to deep ocean reefs where they feed on kelp and other algae. Similar to rockfish, they are a long-lived species but are rather slow to reproduce. "It can take nine years or more for abalone on the north coast to grow to legal size for harvest, and those animals must supply the fishery for several years to come," Taniguchi said. For northern California's red abalone fishery, concentrated fishery effort, increased take, poor reproduction, and a decline in deep water stocks led the Commission to reduce the daily and annual limits for sport abalone in 2002. In addition to fishing regulations, the Commission recently adopted the state's Abalone Recovery and Management Plan (ARMP), the result of a five-year comprehensive public process. The ARMP includes a host of recovery guidelines particularly for endangered white and depleted pink, green, and black abalone whose fisheries closed in the mid-1990s. The ARMP also provides management guidelines for the northern fishery and any future fisheries. The plan adopted by the Commission includes recommendations for a limited abalone fishery in southern California where a concentrated population of red abalone exists around San Miguel Island. The Commission has discussed the possibility of opening these fisheries as soon as April 2008. Currently, the only sustained abalone fishery in California is in the northern region of the state, which has remained productive for nearly 60 years. For both the 2002 and 2003 seasons, the estimated annual catch was 264,000 abalone. "This estimate is much lower than in previous years, primarily as a result of recent changes in bag limits and annual limits," said Jerry Kashiwada, DFG marine biologist who oversees abalone survey research. "However, data from the abalone permit report cards and targeted surveys such as telephone surveys have improved both the amount and the accuracy of data available to DFG biologists, which translates into more accurate annual estimates. The ARMP also provides a plan to further improve accuracy of catch estimates as well as additional data to be able to more efficiently manage the fishery," he said. While the main purpose of the telephone survey was to gather fishing information, the interviewers also asked questions concerning basic socio-economic characteristics of the fishery users. An estimated 32,500 fishermen tried to catch abalone in 2003, spending an estimated $8.5 million in northern California communities. However, each dollar directly spent on abalone fishing stimulates a trickle-down effect of additional spending as it enters local economies. When these additional expenditures are taken into account, the total economic impact of the abalone fishery for 2003 is estimated at more than $12 million. For additional information on California's abalone resource and abalone fishery management, log on to DFG's Marine Region Website at www.dfg.ca.gov/mrd/abalone.html and www.dfg.ca.gov/mrd/armp/index.html.
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