Continued
In 1949, commercial harvesting of abalone was banned
in Northern California. Three years later, so was the use of scuba
gear (DFG says these initial restrictions were driven by sport fisherman,
not the State). In 2000, ab divers had to begin using a "punch
card" so that Fish and Game could track their harvest, and in
2002 their take limit was downgraded to three abalone a day, and 24
a year (according to Jerry Kashiwada, a Biologist with the Department
of Fish and Game, in the 1970s an avid hunter on the North Coast could,
theoretically, catch up to 850 abalone in one day).
Fish and Game says their restrictions are protecting the abalone-and
maintaining a sustainable resource for the future. The department
wants to avoid what happened down south, where a Channel Islands-based
commercial fishery and scuba-clad harvesters strip-mined the ab population.
In 1997, the fishery closed and a still-in-effect ban between Mexico
and the Golden Gate followed.
To Fish and Game’s near prohibition on the North
Coast, some, of course, shout tyranny. “To say there’s
a shortage is total bullshit,” said Frank Schneider, an ab diver
who lives in Pacifica but has been diving off the Mendocino Coast
for more than 20 years. “I think there’s more abalone
growing now because there’s no commercial fishing anymore.”
Despite the objections, DFG’s rules are in place. And wardens
hand out citations like parking tickets.
Captain
Wayne Kidwell of Fish and Game estimates that between April and June—the
busiest months for ab hunters—the Fort Bragg office issued between
450 and 500 citations along the Mendocino Coast. He says that over
the 17 years he’s worked out of Fort Bragg, he’s seen
“a slow, steady increase” of poachers from the Bay Area.
The majority of these citations, according to Kidwell, went to ab
harvesters who didn’t fill out their punch cards correctly.
“Most of the time they know how to fill it out,” he said.
“But they just don’t think they’re going to get
checked.”
There’s
also a tendency to “overlimit,” or to take more than three
a day, and to harvest abs that are smaller than the legal harvesting
size—seven inches.
Many
of these poachers end up in Fort Bragg’s Ten Mile Court to pay
their $700 fines. And many, says Assistant District Attorney Tim Stoen,
need interpreters. “They’re Korean, Cantonese or Mandarin,”
he said. “They don’t know what the licenses are.”
While
there’s a tendency to blame the poaching problem on the “Asians
from Oakland,” that analysis is incorrect, according to Kidwell.
He says that the guys doing it commercially—like the Robles
brothers—bare just as much responsibility as the droves of Bay
Area immigrants who drive north for their catch (which, more often
that not, is for family or individual consumption). “Somebody
doing it commercially will do more damage,” he said, “but
the large number of people coming up also causes a tremendous amount
of damage.”
Take,
for instance, the infamous case of Curt Ward and Joshua Holt, two
licensed sea urchin divers who made a grossly overlimit catch a few
miles north of Elk. When wardens raided their fish hold, they found
468 abalone. The profit for them would have been immense: A sea urchin
can fetch as low as 25 cents a pound. Red abs, of course, are worth
much more.
Or
take Lance Robles, the elder brother, and more accomplished family
poacher. If convicted (both brothers plead not guilty on July 5),
this will be his second trip to the pokey for illicit harvesting—and
his third poaching-related bust. He was caught in 1996 and sentenced
to a year in Sonoma County Jail for poaching 46 abalone, and was arrested
earlier this year with his buddy, Marty Holloway—who was also
arrested in Lockyer’s bust—in Navarro with 26 abalone.
For unknown reasons, the County dropped those charges.
The
problem, according to Kidwell, is that these commercial busts are
few and far between. His office makes a handful of arrests each year,
he says, but DFG doesn’t have the muscle to patrol the often-sophisticated
operations of commercial poachers. At the moment, he says, there are
only three DFG wardens stationed on the Mendocino Coast’s 131
mile shore, and there are 60 unfilled warden jobs around the state.
“They can make more money working for CHP or the Sheriff’s
office,” he said. “We only hire 10 people per year for
the whole state.”
The
result is what Mendo ab lovers most often see—or hear about.
Road blocks and check points, and immigrants poaching their precious
mollusk.Yet
the Robles of the Coast are just as responsible. And the smart ones
are a hell of a lot harder to catch.
