[mikeg8]

Great news. I live in the area this story was filmed in and have been to that pro shop. I really hope they can weather a lost season and feel bad for the tough times ahead. But I’m happy and proud that our state is willing to take drastic measures to protect the resource. I hope that as we focus on balance and stewardship, populations of salmon, and abalone, to continue to rebound so that the fisheries are healthy and reopened, and we can all enjoy the bounty from this region’s ocean.

[yesenadam]

And maybe the life in the ocean is more than just a "resource" for humans to exploit, like so much coal or gas.

[peanuty1]

This is exactly how I was feeling reading this thread. We are only concerned about the salmon to preserve the industry and not the salmon themselves or the ecosystem.

Sometimes I hear Millennials and Gen-Z say they don't want to have kids because the world sucks and think they're doomers but they have a point.

[nradov]

It's unclear if abalone will ever rebound to the extent of allowing for much harvesting. There was a brief, unnatural boom in the abalone population due to humans almost wiping out their natural predator: sea otters. Now the sea otter population is recovering and they take many of the abalone.

Withering syndrome also started impacting abalone populations around the same time as the sea otters. It's still a problem.

https://wildlife.ca.gov/Conservation/Laboratories/Shellfish-...

More recently, sea star wasting syndrome has killed off the predators that kept sea urchins in check. Sunflower sea stars are now locally extinct. Those urchins eat the same kelp as abalone and have out competed them along most of the California coast.

https://marine.ucsc.edu/data-products/sea-star-wasting/index...

[mikeg8]

Hey, thanks for the great comment and info, it seems mostly accurate. I started diving for abs in 2007 until they closed the fishery, and continue to spearfish Sonoma/mendo coasts to this day. One of my best friend is an abalone scientist/researcher for CA fish and game and the UC Davis Bodega Bay marine lab, so I get some info directly from “boots on the ground” so to speak. I’d like to add/clarify for any other curious readers, as abalone are a huge interest of mine.

The otters are actually not a real problem for abalone. Yes, otters are a natural predator, but the current sea otter population is not recovering to levels that would seriously impact abalone recovery. To my knowledge, the Otter population is still plateaued at around 3-4k globally (used to be hundreds of thousands) In addition, many otters are found south of San Francisco, and while their range does historically include waters well north off GG bridge (where the red abalone are) it’s not a significant amount. I live within 10 miles of the Sonoma coast and frequently visit, I’ve seen maybe 5 otters in the past 10 years, even while kayaking/diving.

The biggest challenge for abalone right now is the lack of kelp beds (food) to recover a huge population die off in 2014/15 during a red tide event. The red tide devastated populations, literally thousands of shells washing ashore. In the wake of the die off, and unfortunately in conjunction with the timing of the sunflower star wasting disease killing off the urchins main predator, this left a huge vacancy for urchins to move in and create “urchin barrens” which are just rocks and ecosystems covered in urchins, nothing else. Urchins compete with abalone for food, and bull kelp for space to grow. So now the abalone, and their food source, don’t have the physical space to re-establish.

There was a sighting of the sunflower star in Sonoma this year so there are hopes that they will make a ferocious come back. In additions, the massive population boom of urchins has led to wasting and disease within that population, which is now slightly declining (good).

Abalone take 6-7 years to reach harvesting size and I think a few years before they can reproduce, so their recovery will always take a while. But it looks like we may have turned a slight corner this year.

Although you are totally right that they may never RE-open the fishery, I still hold hope they will someday as it’s an incredibly fun hobby and I love eating abalone. But at the end of the day, I just want to see healthy/balanced ecosystems. The waters used to be a lot more interesting when there was more abs, kelp, and other critters instead of the depressing urchin barrens of the last so many years. Thanks for reading.

[mulmen]

Well, we can’t all enjoy the resource. That’s how we got into this mess.

[nerdponx]

We can all enjoy it, in ways other than strip mining it from the sea all at once.

[mulmen]

Good point. Enjoyment doesn’t require consumption.