Our office has been working cooperatively with Wildlife Protection (WLP) staff since 1987 in reviewing southern and central California commercial abalone landing statistics for evidence of poaching from the sport-only areas in northern California. Landing statistics data indeed suggest the poaching problem continues; the unusually high landings of commercial abalone in both central and southern California that we first observed in 1987 continued in 1992 (Figure 4).
This trend came as no surprise to WLP wardens who had received numerous tips from legitimate processors and fishermen that illegal abalone were again finding their way to commercial markets. Continued poaching has apparently been fueled by both a decline in southern and central abalone stocks and a growing world market for red abalone, centered in China. The price of red abalone increased from $6 per pound to $10 per pound during the last few months of 1993. Since 1983 the price of abalone paid to fishermen has increased 239%, almost five times the rate of inflation.
The poaching problem first came to the attention of our project in 1987 when we observed a shift towards increased landings and success of new commercial abalone fishermen off the San Mateo coast. By 1988 over half the commercial red abalone landings were supposedly coming from this small district.
Commercial harvest of abalone is allowed only in southern California, the Farallon Islands, and on the San Mateo coast. The tripling of abalone landings since 1983 coincided with the "uni" gold rush of 1985, as urchin divers from southern California flocked northward to mine the untapped urchin stocks off Sonoma and Mendocino Counties. Many of these same urchin divers were also abalone permittees from southern California. What we found disturbing was that the abalone fishing success rate of these "southern" boats was on the average three times higher than boats that had been fishing in the area since 1983. Indeed landings were often unusually large (up to 47 dozen) for an area that had been heavily fished for many years. Boats with these unusually high landings were targeted by WLP staff for surveillance. Two of the boats, the Hell Raiser and the Phaedra, were busted and confiscated. The arrests and publicity helped lead to new legislation to deal with poaching (Assembly Bill 3705) in 1991. This bill increased fines and required boat forfeiture if more than 36 abalone were involved in a crime. It also established landing limits, originally intended to reduce poaching. Unfortunately, through legislative compromise, the limits established were over twice what we suggested. The limits imposed were 14 dozen per vessel in central California and 30 dozen per vessel in southern California.
Landing statistics now show that in 1992 large landings were still being made, and that they exceeded the new central California landing limits. Figure 5 shows peak landings in 1992 at 7, 14, and 21 dozen per vessel per day. Landings larger than 14 dozen are illegal and represent fishermen who split loads between different dealers to hide large landings. Figure 4 shows that following the 1991 passage of AB 3705 boat success per day and landings shifted back to southern California, where catch per day became twice that of central California. WLP staff and our office have received reports from persons involved in the fishery that some of these landing originate illegally from northern California waters. Such reports have yet to be substantiated by actual arrests.
Recently WLP busted a San Diego County abalone processor and four Sonoma county divers who allegedly were using SCUBA to poach northern California abalone. These divers, non of whom had commercial abalone permits, shipped an estimated 50,000 pounds of frozen abalone south to the San Diego dealer to be sold on the "black market". None of the landings were reported on our commercial landing statistics. These poachers took an estimated 13,300 abalone from deep water stocks in a small area of Sonoma county or an estimated 18% of the yearly legal sport take for the county. The potential for economic loss here is staggering since the now-threatened deep water "reserve" populations of abalone are what now sustain the northern California sport fishery. This case has highlighted the north-south controversy with the strong words of the defense attorney who said, "this is Fish and Game in northern California using the 'iron fist' to hold onto what they should be sharing with all Californians."
The question of who has the selfish attitude with regard to the remaining abalone stocks will probably pit recreational interests in the north (40,000 participating sportsmen annually generating an estimated $10,000,000 in economic activity) against the "black market" interests and remnant commercial fishery of central and southern California.
Dive survey, landing receipt, and creel survey data clearly show that the southern stocks are remnants of historical populations. The preservation of northern stocks occurred because in the beginning of the fishery, the northern populations were relatively small compared to the southern populations and it was thought that they would not last long if commercial take or sport SCUBA take was allowed. The health of the southern populations is now so dire that the commercial pressure has turned to the north through poaching and pressure to legalize a northern commercial harvest. Legalizing commercial exploitation in the north would not result in a balance of population densities at a healthy level, but would probably result in northern stock densities decreasing to those now found in the south. - KK, WV