Posted by msblucow on January 27, 2000 at 16:25:28:
I just saw this on the deja.com BBS. I thought it might be of concern to some of you on the board, so I'm reprinting it here in it's entirety....
If you enjoy the north coast's abalone resource, the
California Fish and Game Commission needs to hear from you
before their February 3 hearing in Long Beach. The sooner
they hear from you, the better.
There's a regulatory process that's moving quickly and will
renew shipments to northern California of abalone infected
with the Rickettsia bacteria that causes Withering Syndrome.
For those unfamilar with Withering Syndrome, it is the
terminal phase of an infection and lasts a few months before
the affected animal expires. Withering Syndrome devastated
southern California's black abalone, reducing their
populations by 99% over their entire range. Because of
recreational and commercial harvesting pressure on southern
California's green, pink, and red abalone, the effects of
Withering Syndrome on those species is less clear. However,
after the 1997 closure of abalone harvesting down south,
surveys of the last concentrations of southern California's
red abalone San Miguel Island) reealed 5% of the animals
with Withering Syndrome. Last year's surveys in the same
area revealed dramatic drops in the numbers of red abalone
and a lot of fresh shells. All of this points to a strong
suggestion that Rickettsia infected red abalone progress
more slowly to the same end suffered by black abalone.
There's only one abalone aquaculture operation left in
northern California; the others have dwindled out of
business. That last facility is located in Crescent City.
In August of 1998, the California Department of Fish and
Game banned their transferring Rickettsia infected abalone
from southern California facilities. That ban means the
operators have been buying slightly smaller seed abalone
that are too young to have acquired the Rickettsia bacteria.
The aquaculture operators in Crescent City are saying they
now suffer from a 26 month production gap and that they're
in dire financial straights. How there's a 26 month gap
because of a change less than 18 months ago that forced them
to reduce the size of their seed abalone by a few
millimeters remains an unanswered question. The answer
seems to have something to do with their plans to expand
production capacity and the paper profits they have/may/will
lose because they can't immediately increase their shipping
quantities. Their need remains very fuzzy and repeated
queries asking for clarification have gone unanswered.
CDFG has completed limited surveys of northern California
waters and discovered Rickettsia infected abalone in the
wild at Van Damme and Crescent City. Four other locations
(Caspar, Bodega Bay, Trinidad, Shelter Cove) turned up
clean. The places where Rickettsia has been found were
either sites for outplantings of aquaculture animals (Van
Damme and Crescent City) or near the raw effluent of the
Crescent City aquaculture facility.
The finding of Rickettsia in the wild at Van Damme is being
focused on as a greater threat to the abalone resource than
the Abalone International facility far to the north at
Crescent City. This may or may not prove to be the case;
there is evidence on both sides of that question. But
there's a significant difference between the two situations.
Van Damme appears to have been contaminated on one day
almost five years ago; things will now run their natural
course and the optimistic among us are praying it will die
out naturally. By comparison, changing the current ban to
allow shipments of infected abalone to an expanded Crescent
City operation will renew that location as a source of new
pathogens discharged into the ocean on a day-by-day basis
indefinitely. As one aquaculture specialist explained to
me, we all get exposed to TB in our society but disease
doesn't appear until that exposure reaches above a certain
threshold.
The issue seems to be fast tracked within CDFG. It is on
the agenda for the next Fish and Game Commission hearing
(February 3 in Long Beach) and it's entirely possible the
ban will be lifted then. Unless the Fish and Game
Commission hears from the diving public.
Letters are needed now; after the ban has been lifted, it'll
be too late. Direct them to:
California Fish and Game Commission
1416 Ninth Street
Sacramento, CA 95814
Copies should also be sent to:
Director of Fish and Game
California Department of Fish and Game
1416 Ninth Street
Sacramento, CA 95814
Thanks for your help.
Rocky Daniels
Sebastopol, California
http://www.sonic.net/~rocky (Last Updated: January 11,
2000))