Habitat restoration
California Lost Fishing Gear Recovery Project
The California Lost Fishing Gear Recovery Project is funded by grants made specifically for gear removal in California. It is not supported by funds donated to the SeaDoc Society by individuals. The California project is an example of the kind of cross-pollination and collaboration across political boundaries that are hallmarks of the SeaDoc Society's work: lessons learned in Washington and California are shared with groups working in each area to make gear removal more efficient and more economically feasible.
The SeaDoc Society at the University of California, Davis Wildlife Health Center launched the California Lost Fishing Gear Recovery Project in July 2005 in partnership with the California Ocean Protection Council and State Coastal Conservancy, the Northwest Straits Commission (Mt. Vernon, Washington), and NOAA's Marine Debris Program and Office of Restoration.
This project encourages ocean users to report the presence of lost gear, and hires experienced commercial SCUBA divers to remove gear from near-shore waters in a safe and environmentally sensitive manner.
Since May 2006, the California Lost Fishing Gear Recovery Project has retrieved more than 45 tons of gear from California's coastal ocean, primarily in Southern California, including around the California Channel Islands (Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, Anacapa and Santa Catalina).
As well, the project has cleaned more than 1400 pounds of recreational fishing gear off public fishing piers from Santa Cruz to Imperial Beach including more than 1 million feet of fishing line. Several of these piers now have fishing line recycling bins, to encourage proper disposal of unwanted hooks and microfilament.
And although the debris was not fishing gear, in May 2010 the project removed 650 discarded toilets and automobile tires weighing almost 20 tons from a rocky reef off Pt. Dume, Malibu. This is an area under consideration by the State of California for special designation as a Marine Protected Area in large part because of the large reef it encompasses. SeaDoc and the Department of Fish and Game were keen to restore as much of the reef to more pristine conditions as possible.
Currently, with the support of the California Wildlife Conservation Board and the NOAA Marine Debris Program and mitigation monies transferred from the California Coastal Commission, the California Lost Fishing Gear Recovery Project is continuing to help reduce the potential impact of lost fishing gear on living marine resources and underwater habitat by building upon successes to date to accomplish the following new goals:
- Enhancing the function of and restoring underwater habitat of the designated and proposed Marine Protected Areas in Central and Southern California by focusing gear recovery effort in these MPA networks;
- Retrieving lost fishing gear anywhere on the coast where it is a high priority for removal because of demonstrated or potential impacts to marine wildlife and people, including more work in the Channel Islands Marine Sanctuary and extensive work in the Santa Barbara Channel and off the Los Angeles County coast;
- Working closely with commercial Dungeness crab fishermen on the North Coast to develop a program whereby crab fishermen are conducting the gear work themselves and selling the recovered gear back to their fellow fishermen, work that is made all the more financially feasible through reimbursements of out-of-pocket expenses incurred in the recovery work; and
- Increasing the likelihood that ocean users and enthusiasts will know enough about the project and the issue to serve as our "eyes" on and under the water through outreach.
Report lost gear in California:
- Download a reporting form, or
- Call 1-888-491-GEAR
To download a copy of the California Lost Fishing Gear Recovery Project Policies & Procedures manual (pdf), please click here.
If you have questions about lost fishing gear removal in California or for copies of our field reports, contact staff:
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Kirsten Gilardi kvgilardi@ucdavis.edu |
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Jennifer Renzullo jrrenzullo@ucdavis.edu |
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2011 Rockfish Recovery Workshop recap
This past week (June 28 & 29, 2011) SeaDoc co-hosted a Rockfish Recovery Workshop in Seattle with the State Department of Wildlife and NOAA Fisheries.
Nearly 100 scientists, fisheries managers, fishers and SCUBA divers attended the 2-day workshop to discuss the current state of knowledge on rockfish and to identify future needs related to recovering depleted rockfish populations in the Salish Sea.
There are 28 species of rockfish in the Salish Sea. Thirteen (13) are listed as species of concern and recently 3 species were listed under the US Endangered Species Act.
In addition to helping organize the workshop, SeaDoc also helped bring in Canadians to share their perspective on what has and has not worked with rockfish recovery on the other side of the border.
A lot of the research SeaDoc funded over the last 10 years was presented and plans were laid for moving rockfish recovery forward. The meeting proceedings will be published soon and will be available here on the SeaDoc website.
In the meantime, here's a recap:
(Please note that this summary is taken from my notes and if there are errors or misstatements they are mine, not the researchers/presenters! -Joe T.)
Historical Context Session
Wayne Palsson spoke on the biology and assessment of rockfishes in Puget Sound. Rockfishes are a diverse group of species with different life histories. They require various habitat during different life stages. They are adapted for slow growth, long survival, late maturity, low natural mortality rates, and high habitat fidelity. These are all factors that make recovery tough. There's a lack of long-term data that makes it hard to create conventional age-structure population models and biomass dynamic models.
Chris Harvey reviewed the ecological history of rockfish exploitation in Puget Sound. Rockfish bones have been found in middens dating back 1,500 years. Much of the fishing pressure on rockfish began after the Boldt decision in 1974, which required that harvests in Puget Sound be coequally managed by the State government and the Treaty Tribes of Washington. It's also been influenced by demographic trends and by the promotion of the fishery by State government. (Unfortunately, as covered in Wayne Palsson's talk, it wasn't until 1982 that scientists learned that rockfish were generally 2 to 3 times longer lived than they'd thought, which meant the existing population models were not accurate.) By the time management efforts were deemed necessary, the greatest harvests had already occurred.
Anne Beaudreau discussed her work to reconstruct historical trends in rockfish abundance. The lack of data on historical populations of rockfish is a major barrier to developing sustainable fisheries. Beaudreau and colleagues interviewed 101 individuals ranging in age from 24 to 90 years to try to derive trends in the abundance of rockfish from 1940 to the present. Of particular interest was the evidence of "shifting baselines." To a statistically significant degree, each age group of respondents interpreted the conditions at the beginning of their awareness as "abundant" and saw declines from there, but what was "declining" to an older person was "abundant" to a younger person.
Benthic Habitat Surveys/Rockfish Abundance Estimates Session
Gary Greene presented the Salish Sea sea floor mapping project, which has produced bathymetric and habitat maps of the San Juan Islands area. Rockfish prefer particular habitat types, and the multibeam echosounders used by Greene and his colleagues allows these potential habitat areas to be identified. (Other participants were very interested in having these maps for other areas in the Salish Sea.
Bob Pacunski spoke on work to use non-lethal methods to survey rockfish populations. Traditional trawl or long-line sampling results in fish mortality, but using a small remotely-operated vehicle has been shown to be effective at providing population surveys.
Stressors Session
Joan Drinkwin of the Northwest Straits Foundation spoke on the threat posed to rockfish by derelict fishing gear, including both nets and traps. The Northwest Straits Initiative has removed 3,860 nets from Puget Sound, all at less than 105 feet deep. There are 950 shallow-water nets still in the water, and at least 70 in deeper water. Based on studies of net mortality by the SeaDoc Society, approximately 1,600 rockfish per year are captured and killed in derelict nets each year in the United States portion of the Salish Sea.
...More coming soon...
Elwha Dam Removal
Joe Gaydos serves as a governor appointed Commissioner and science and technical advisor to the Northwest Straits Commission.
He shared this from the Northwest Straits Commission meeting on May 20, 2011:
At the meeting today, we heard a great presentation by Dean Butterworth of the National Park Service on the removal of the Elwha Dams, scheduled to begin this September.
This will be a major national and international event.
The three main reasons for removing the Elwha Dam and Glines Canyon Dams from the Elwha river are:
- To benefit salmon and sea-run trout; both dams were built without provision for fish passage and you can still see salmon pooling below the dams, blocked from spawning.
All 5 salmon species as well as 3 species of anadromous trout (steelhead, bull trout and cutthroat) used to inhabit and/or spawn in the Elwha river.
Before the dams, fish could access over 70 miles of streams and freshwater. Since the dams, only the lower 5 miles of the river remain for spawning.
Note: in addition to benefitting salmon and trout, allowing these fishes to re-inhabit 65 miles of freshwater will benefit the riparian habitat as well as over 130 species of animals.
- Dams also block the movement of sediment from the river from moving into the Strait of Juan de Fuca (about 18-20 million yards of sediment are thought to exist trapped behind the dams).
- A giant push by the Lower Elwha-Klallam tribe for full restoration of the Elwha River ecosystem.
To date, there have been numerous studies to direct the removal of the dams as well as on-the-ground work to help open up an area where there will eventually be another delta at the mouth of the Elwha river.
As September draws near and for the next several years in the future, this huge ecosystem restoration story will be talked about all over the country and the world. We'll keep you posted with updates.
Don't miss these two very cool animated visualizations of the removal of each dam.
Note: Some images are static, others are animated. Click on the image to start or advance the slideshow.
More info at http://www.nps.gov/olym/naturescience/elwha-faq.htm
Beaver & Salmon Lecture Recap
On February 8 SeaDoc hosted Greg Hood from the Skagit River System Cooperative for a talk on Beaver, Salmon, and restoration of tidal habitat. We recorded audio and video of this event: see below for links.
The Economics of Ecosystem Resoration
On January 12, 2011, SeaDoc's Chief Scientist, Joe Gaydos, went down to Olympia to address the Washington State Senate Natural Resources and Marine Waters Committee.
His basic message: Our natural resources translate directly into money for Washington State.
- 47% of Washington residents participate in wildlife watching.
- Watchable wildlife accounts for a total economic output of $1.78 billion.
- Watchable wildlife generates or maintains nearly 22,000 jobs.
To put that in perspective, 22,000 jobs is just slightly less than Boeing, the state's largest employer, and 5 times the number of jobs at the next largest employer, Microsoft.
Joe makes a compelling argument that protecting our natural resources is more than just tree-hugging. It's a requirement for our future economic prosperity.
Get Joe's full presentation by downloading the narrative as a PDF.
It's a fast read, and it's entertaining.
You can also watch a video of the event (opens in a new window).
Removal of dams on Olympic Penninsula to help salmon
The removal of two dams on the Elwha River near Olympic National Park is anticipated to help restore salmon runs in this area. Five different species of salmon use this river, which as been dammed since 1917.
For details on the project and the expected benefits, see the Elwha dam removal page at the Olympic National Park site or an article in the Sequim Gazette.
Watershed Restoration bills pass Senate committee
In the United States Senate, the Environment and Public Works Committee has passed a suite of restoration bills that will authorize needed funding for seven different areas around the country, one of which is Puget Sound. The bill creates investments in ongoing restoration projects. One of the interesting points raised in an article about these watershed restoration efforts is that they can have a clear economic return on investment: a study of efforts in the Great Lakes region determined that for every dollar spent on restoration there were two dollars' worth of economic benefits. See more information at Waterworld.com or read about the Great Lakes study at The Brookings Institution.
July 1, 2010
New Comments on Rockfish Conservation
Independent of the recent Federal listing of 3 rockfish species, Washington State is working on their rockfish recovery plan. Today SeaDoc submitted comments on the revised draft Environmental Impact Statement.
While most of the recovery plan is good, the State is still proposing that hatchery production and the use of artificial habitat be used as part of the recovery strategy. SeaDoc feels that hatcheries and artifical habitat are not good ideas.
PDFs:
Read the WDFW draft rockfish EIS
Comments must be received by 5pm on May 21, 2010. Visit the Washington Dept of Fish and Wildlife for more information.
Keynote Address
SeaDoc Work Featured on YouTube
Executive Director Kirsten Gilardi is featured on this UC Davis clip about the Lost Fishing Gear Recovery Project. She was also interviewed when a mother and calf gray whale found themselves at the port of Sacramento and had to be coaxed back to open waters.
