Posted by Max Bottomtime on January 05, 2000 at 19:02:08:
In Reply to: Bull Pucky posted by seahunt on January 05, 2000 at 17:18:13:
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PS. Divers have tended to have bad habits about game and environmental
management as did everyone entering frontiers, but that is the human nature
of the hunt. Breaking urchins to attract fish seems, from the present, to
have been a bad idea, but most divers are presently far more careful than
they used to be.
What would be a good idea, if you study the real ecology of kelp forests
(Wheeler J. North), would be for divers to place rocks when they see a good
location where they can create fish habitat. Fish populations on a reef are
dependant on the places fish have to hide in the rocks. The more places,
the more fish.
Just a couple of small points. Wheeler North organized a sucessful campaign with volunteer divers to crush urchins with hammers all around the Palos Verdes Peninsula when we only had one living kelp plant here. The kelp is now thriving. The abalone population is near zero here, and there haven't been otters here for over 100 years.