An Absence of Abalone

North Coast recreational fishery closed until 2036 as recovery remains elusive

Unless conditions change dramatically in the interim, the North Coast’s iconic recreational red abalone fishery will remain closed for at least another decade.

The move made official by a unanimous vote of the California Fish and Game Commission on Dec. 11 had been on the table for months as the delicate marine ecosystem on which the prized mollusks depend continues to struggle in the wake of what scientists have described as a “perfect storm” of successive ecological events dating back more than a decade.

Had the commission not taken the action to extend the temporary shuttering first enacted back in 2017 after the shellfish’s numbers plummeted to unprecedented lows amid the collapse of the region’s bull kelp forests — and lengthened twice in the intervening years — the fishery had been set to reopen April 1. Instead, the sunset date has been pushed back again until 2036. 

While much of the public comment was supportive as the proposal made its way through the procedural process that began over the summer when the commission voted to publish a notice of the impending decision, some have asked for consideration of a shorter closure. Others have also floated the possibility of a limited take to gain a better insight on the status of the abalone stock, as well as to help raise money for enforcement and restoration.

The commission also had a hearing on the matter in October where members noted the course of placing the last vestige of recreational abalone diving in the state off limits for another decade can be altered before that mark if underwater conditions improve.

Before last week’s vote, several noted the extensive discussions that had already taken place up to that point, covering everything from the reasons for another extension and potential alternatives to the difficulty of the decision for all involved. 

“So we’ve had a dedicated conversation about our collective risk tolerance for reopening this fishery and we’ve come to the conclusion, I think among us, that we really don’t have very much tolerance for risk right now with the information we have,” Commissioner Samantha Murray said. “So we agreed to focus on restoration of abalone and getting more information.”

She also said “it was important to remember” that the state’s Fish and Wildlife Department originally recommended a blanket moratorium without a specified end point.

“We scaled that back already to 10 years,” Murray said. “So, for me, that is the right time horizon for taking this action, as difficult as it is, knowing we can have these check-in points along the way and will want to.”

Fellow Commissioner Erika Zavaleta said she echoed Murray’s points but also wanted to acknowledge the impacts the closure has had on coastal communities that once depended on the recreation season as an economic driver, noting, “it sits heavily on me that the collapse of this fishery has destroyed livelihoods.”

“That is in the room,” Zavaleta continued, “and to recover that fishery we have to have abalone and that should be the focus. I’m really confident in the energy and the resources that are going towards that.”

Things began to unravel back in August of 2011, when an outbreak of toxic algae off the Sonoma County coast led to a massive die-off of marine life. Then came the mysterious sea star wasting disease two years later, impacting an estimated 80 percent of the celestial-shaped creatures along the entire Pacific Coast, although earlier this year a group of researchers reported identifying the bacterium source after years of searching.

Amid the devastating spread, the sunflower star all but disappeared, removing from the scene the integral role the particularly voracious keystone predator — which can grow as large as a car tire and boasts 24-arms at maturity — played in the maintaining the health of kelp forests by keeping urchins in check with the notable ability to swallow one whole. 

Meanwhile, back-to-back marine heat waves decimated the region’s bull kelp forests, which are dependent on cool ocean temperatures to thrive. Following the so-called “warm water blob” of 2014 and the “Godzilla” El Niño of 2015, some areas off the Mendocino and Sonoma coasts saw declines in the waxy canopies of more than 90 percent compared to previous years.  

Without the sunflower star on the prowl, the purple sea urchin population exploded. And, as bull kelp was in short supply, the formerly passive feeders — once content to feed on algae that floated by — set their sights on what remained of the stocks and nearly everything else, transforming previously thriving reefs teeming with an array of sea life into virtual dead zones known as “urchin barrens.”

Simply unable to keep up as urchins moved in on what was left of their main food supply, the slower-on-the-go abalone began to starve and reproduction levels fell, leading to the loss of an estimated 85 percent of the population across a wide swath of coastline stretching from Sonoma to Southern Humboldt over a few short years. Amid that backdrop, the fishery’s original closure was approved in 2017.  

During the August meeting when the decision was made to move forward with the process to set a new sunset date for the third time, the commission heard a status update on where things stand. The news was not good.

While there had been hope that the closure and ensuing extensions would give the beleaguered shellfish a chance to bounce back, both the stock and the region’s marine environments remain in a fragile state in many areas eight years later.

“In spite of the ongoing moratorium … abalone populations have shown no signs of recovery and kelp forests on the North Coast have not yet rebounded despite cooler ocean temperatures,” Brian Owen, a senior marine ecologist with the state Fish and Wildlife Department, told the commission. 

At play, he said, are many of the same complex, intertangled issues that lead to the ecosystem’s collapse. That includes an ongoing overabundance of purple urchin, a lack of kelp recovery and the near extinction of the sunflower star, although Owen noted there have been seeing “some increase in sightings” in California’s northern counties, but those “remain very low.” 

Complicating matters, he said, is the abalone’s years-long path to maturity and their reproduction process of sending sperm and eggs out into the water, which requires dense populations for a successful match to be made.

Overall, Owen said, the North Coast is still seeing “low and variable levels” of young abalone. 

Another factor is that without sunflower stars to help rein in sprawling purple urchin numbers, bull kelp — which grows as a single stalk and dies off each year — is still struggling to regain a foothold as new growths continue to fall victim to the spiky echinoids.

“So even when conditions improve and some of the barriers are removed, like increased kelp being available and stronger recruitment, it still can take a number of years before we see enough surplus abalone to consider reopening the fishery,” he said. 

At this month’s commission meeting, speakers’ comments continued along similar lines as previous discussions, with the majority voicing support for the closure as a necessary way to protect the sea snail tucked inside an intricate shell into the future. 

Among those, several also noted the cultural significance abalone has carried for tribal communities for millennia, with a representative of Fish On also reiterating the group’s previous calls for the commission to consider allowing tribal take first, when and if the fishery should reopen down the line. 

But there were also calls for alternative routes, including a shorter closure and, as one speaker said, for the commission to start planning now for “a smart way to reopen this fishery … in an incremental way.” 

Former abalone diver Jack Likins, who has been active in restoration efforts, said he “understood why the commission wanted to extend the closure for 10 years,” but asked that the commission include in the motion a provision for staff to provide “updates on the status of the resource at least annually,” saying “five years is a long time,” in reference to the mid-point status review the board asked for during the August meeting.  

He also noted there has been no abalone data collected by the department for the last two years, saying, “we’ve got some catching up to do to better understand the status of the fishery.” And, he said, there’s information being collected by numerous entities — from academic institutions and tribes to non-governmental agencies — but that “has not really been coordinated and brought together to use for abalone management.”

Other gaps, Likins added, are in intertidal data and the status of abalone in Humboldt and Del Norte counties.

During her comments, Murray said she wanted to reflect on a couple of the speakers’ remarks, saying she agrees that with “any future reopening we do really need to first consider tribal take, honoring that rich cultural heritage since time immemorial.”

In reference to Likins’ comments, she added that the commission “of course” wants the department to be working with “anyone who has knowledge to share on abalone, which is so iconic and important to California.”

On the subject of work being done outside of the department, Commissioner Jacque Hostler-Carmesin noted the efforts being undertaken by North Coast tribes, with “prolific restoration happening” that is showing signs of success and encouraged tribal marine departments to share that knowledge.

As the item was being introduced, Zavaleta noted the five-year update that commissioners had asked the department to provide but added that if the agency has “information, changes, updates before that, obviously they can bring that to us.”

After she asked CDFW’s Marine Region Manager Craig Shuman if he wanted to elaborate further, he agreed the department can always bring forward new information at any time and noted he has heard the concerns being raised that a decision to move forward with a 10-year closure means the agency was going to “walk away from this resource.”

“I can assure the commission and stakeholders and tribes that we are certainly not going to do that,” Shuman said. “We understand the magnitude of what is being considered today. This is not a package that we brought to you lightly.”

He briefly touched on the long journey that came well before the extension on the table, saying it was a path notched by a “string of regulatory actions to reduce take over a period of time” that preceded the initial closure by a decade. 

“This is just really unfortunate circumstances and we are going to do everything we can to bring this fishery back,” Shuman said.

Kimberly Wear is the Journal’s assistant editor. Reach her at kim@northcoastjournal.com.

This article appears in An Absence of Abalone.