State panel recommends Laguna fishing closure
November 10th, 2009, 6:45 pm · 11 Comments · posted by Pat Brennan, science, environment editor
A state task force recommended a ban on fishing along six miles of Laguna Beach coastline Tuesday, along with a variety of other fishing restrictions up and down the Southern California coast. 
The 9 1/2-square-mile, triangle-shaped closure area was one of several that the blue-ribbon panel picked after more than a year of work by a 64-member “stakeholder” group, part of the state-sponsored Marine Life Protection Act Initiative.
The initiative seeks to create new marine protected areas all along the state’s coastline, from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border; Southern California’s is the third of five to be considered.
The panel also recommended fishing closure areas off Point Dume, the Palos Verdes peninsula, San Diego County and Santa Catalina Island, along with lesser restrictions.
“We’re dealing with something really unprecedented,” Meg Caldwell, a Stanford Law School professor and member of the blue-ribbon task force, said shortly before the 5-member panel’s unanimous vote. “The original intent of this act is really to bring our marine coastal endowment back to its former glory, and to allow it to really perform as the engine that it is for our state’s coastal economy.”
The panel’s “preferred alternative” will be sent to the state Fish and Game Commission for final approval, which could take several months and perhaps as long as a year.
But the effort has ignited controversy, especially in the fishing community. Sportfishing enthusiasts and operators of sportfishing party boats in Orange County have expressed strong opposition to a number of the proposals; commercial lobster fishermen, kayak fishermen, spearfishermen and others also have expressed concerns.
“Again, it’s habitat over humanity,” Norris Tapp, an Orange County fishing boat captain and a member of the stakeholder group, told the panel before their vote. “And that’s something we need to look at overall in this situation.”
Tapp later vowed to push for a different alternative for the Laguna coast before the Fish and Game Commission, saying the option adopted by the panel is far too restrictive for fishermen.
Ray Hiemstra, associate director of the environmental group, Orange County Coastkeeper, said he thought the panel struck a good compromise between fishing and conservation interests.
“I think it turned out well,” he said. “It’s a middle ground. The best part is, we’ll have a functioning set of reserves.”
The recommendation came after hours of debate among task force members at the Sheraton Gateway hotel in Los Angeles, as well as comments from an audience that included sport fishing enthusiasts, commercial fishing interests, conservationists and environmental activists.
At one point, two men in the audience nearly came to blows, after an unidentified man standing among a group of fishermen shouted at the panel in a threatening manner. Another unidentified man confronted him, and the two got into a shoving match before being removed from the room by state Fish and Game wardens.
The panel had been expected to decide on a preferred map in a meeting in Long Beach Oct. 22, but postponed the decision to further evaluate responses. That meeting included a street protest by fishermen against possible fishing restrictions.
The most restrictive marine protected areas, marked in red on the stakeholder maps, are known as state marine reserves, where no fishing is allowed. Non-consumptive uses, as well as boating, would still be allowed in these areas.
To the north and south of the state marine reserve on the Laguna coast are stretches of coastline marked in blue: state marine conservation areas, where some fishing is allowed. These would stretch across parts of Crystal Cove and the Dana Point coastline.
The preferred alternative chosen by the panel Tuesday also would place part of Bolsa Chica under a fishing ban, and part with limited fishing.
The mapping effort is the third of its kind under the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative, a state law passed in 1999 and revived in recent years with the help of funding from habitat conservation groups such as the Resource Legacy Foundation. Marine protected areas have been approved on the north central coast and the central coast under the public-private partnership; the north coast effort just began, with San Francisco Bay after that.
The effort seeks to protect a variety of ocean habitats that are home to many kinds of marine life, from rock fish and lobster to sheephead, halibut, white seabass and swordfish.
A map of the panel’s selections will be publicly available in about a week. The Fish and Game Commission is expected to take up the matter next month.
(Register photo of protesters for and against fishing restrictions last month in Long Beach by Michael Goulding.)
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They should ban all fishing along the entire west coast for at least 5 miles out! and ban oil drilling for 50 miles out while they’re at it! Why do people fish for recreation anyway? What a waste of time, go to a sushi bar! Do people go cow hunting? of course not, they just go to a grocery store or a steakhouse!
Why?
Just because you don’t know how, don’t think it’s a waste of time of that.
Maybe someone thinks your stamp collecting is a waste of time ?
And by the way genius, do you know how deep it is 50 miles out to sea? Thought not….
Shows how stupid californians are.
Overfishing wiped out the pacific sardine back in the 1930′s. It has taken 70 years but they are starting to make a come back. Nothing like what their population was, but they are recovering. If restrictions had been imposed sooner, they would not have been over fished in the first place.
It is not a question of habitat over humanity, it is about responsible fisheries management and limiting the catch to preserve the long term health of the fishing stock.
There are not enough fish left to provide sustainable incomes for all the fishermen and fish for the sportsmen–deal with it. Go find something else to do while the fisheries recover.
Hey dope,
It’s not sports fishing wiping out fisheries. It’s commercial fishing.
For some who calls themselves common sense, you have none.
Sports fishing accounts for less then 5% of fish taken from the ocean, you genius. Why don’t YOU go find something else to do like read a book or get a little knowleadge before coming on here and spewing your BS.
Yet another ridiculous law. Not allowing fishing? i fish these waters once in awhile and the fish are abundant. Stop stupid!!
The goal, no fishing off the coast of California.
The left wing rules.
The MLPA process is runaway militant environmentalism at it’s finest. One thing these people do not realize is that when you remove people from the environment they become much less interested in saving it. Fishermen were the first conservationists on the west coast. The Tuna Club of Avalon, The International Gamefish Association, and Trout Unlimited all started life as a groups of conservation minded sportsmen. They did so voluntarily without any cajoling from the Sierra Club, Earth First, The Center for Biological Diversity, or the Government. Sportsmen in southern california have also played an enormous role in the white seabass recovery along our coast. I have never seen a member of the Laguna Beach City Council, Peta, or the World Wildlife Fund donate one second of thier time to raise, catalog, and release these fish into the sea. It has been fishermen and thier children who have done the heavy lifting and made real contributions to restoring out coastal environment. Just remember, every toilet that get’s flushed, toll road that get’s built, and bmw that goes to the car spa contributes to our declining water quality. Banning families from from a day’s fishing will not cure what ails our coastline. It will only deminish the number of people willing to do something about it!
Fred,
Of all the responses I read yours hits the nail right on the head. As a avid sufr fisher, I want the stock healthy. I seldom keep what I catch choosing to release 99% of what I catch. Attacking the sportfishers is a bandaid approach. Let’s look at all the other issues, keep people involved in the environment. This way we have an insterest in keeping it pristine and healthy.
this is for the guy that wants to talk about the demise of sardines in the 1930′s, everything is a cycle,
-In the late 1930′s, california’s sardines supported the biggest fishery in the western hemisphere, with more than half a million tons of fish caught each year. By the mid-1950s, the sardines had virtually disappeared. Although fishing pressure may have played a part in this process, new research published in the current issue of Science indicates that the sardines’ demise was part of a 50-year cycle that affects not just california, but the entire Pacific Ocean.
Fred – I agree with your statement 110%! This law has twisted the lifestyle of everyone who enjoys fishing and for those who make a living for it (our local fisheries who have been in Newport Beach, Dana Point, for close to a 100 years!)
Take away the jobs and the lifestyle of the citizens, you will see the coastal beach cities DROP in revenue!
And living in California is no longer the “Golden” State!
http://www.yesfishing.org