Community Corner
Study: Bass Species See Population Drop
Overfishing of spawning areas, environmental conditions behind drop in local calico and sand bass population, according to study by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.
The populations of calico and barred sand bass have plummeted 90 percent since 1980, according to a study conducted by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.
The two main culprits identified as causing the drop in population were warmer ocean temperatures and overfishing.
"California may be the only place in the world that allows fishing on the spawning grounds," said Dr. Chris Lowe from CSU Long Beach. "It’s a sure recipe for disaster as we have seen this type of behavior lead to the collapse of some fisheries in the past."
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Don Ashley of the Pierpoint Landing in Long Beach said that the South Bay hasn’t seen a good sand bass season for at least five years.
"I still think that the Humboldt Squid have had a major impact on our local fisheries too," Ashley said.
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Ten years ago, it was common for sand bass to move on to the beaches to spawn in massive numbers stretching from the Mexican border to beyond the Channel Islands.
Ensenada and Tijuana, San Clemente, Oceanside, Newport Beach, the Huntington Flats, the Santa Monica Bay and the Ventura Flats are just some of the areas where sand bass would travel every spring to spawn—thousands upon thousands of these fish could be taken daily by anglers.
But now the seasons are much shorter and some of the aforementioned areas sometimes just get a trickle of the prized bass.
Some anglers claim that the ebb and flow of fish stocks are a part of nature, and the drops are cyclical and can be explained by changing water temperatures or other factors.
"We need to be proactive in this matter," said Tom Raftican, president of the Long Beach-based Sportfishing Conservancy, about the wildlife populations.
Raftican advocates reducing limits and tightening size limitations so that smaller and larger fish would have to be released after anglers catch them.
"Recreational anglers should be leading the fight for conservation and not letting other groups drag us into it," Raftican said. "This is Biology 101: you don’t fish a spawning biomass unless you want disastrous consequences. Conservation is in our best interest as fishermen."
