In Reply to: Could you expand some.. posted by seahunt on June 23, 2013 at 12:06:53:

Hello Seahunt~

In the mid 90's the trappers descended on the southern bight, set up receivers around the islands. They placed their traps directly in the kelp forest and with each retrieval they would rip hundreds of pounds kelp off the bottom. They all had multiple machetes on the bow to hack away the kelp. The would load their receivers with live fish all week then haul them in on the week ends.

In the early 90's you used to have to go a mile off the back side of SBI to get around the island, or 3/4 of a mile off the island to get from the anchorage to Sutil. It took them two seasons to destroy that historic kelp forest. They did the same thing at Castle rock, San Clemente Island. Remember all that great kelp paddy fishing in the 90's??? This is where all of that kelp came from!

As you know, the deeper the kelp, the harder it is to restore itself. It all depends on the fortuitous conditions that allow for UV penetration to the bottom. For all we know, that could be a 2 century phenomenon in 80ft of water at SBI. I know that one day back in 1957, a kelp wrapper came by and took small area of kelp right off Balsa Chica beach--it NEVER came back!

Right now the kelp is growing back in the reserve at the south side of SBI, but not so much on the back side and not so much at Castle rock.

The live fishery serves a very exclusive clientele, many of the restaurants do not even have a marquee. The damage that was done during the last rampage to our shared waters should never be forgotten and should never be allowed to happen again--the beneficiaries are too few to support the environmental damage that fishery has already exacted on our waters.

• Re: Re: Could you expand some.. seahunt 19:22:13 06/25/13 (0)