Protection zone established for endangered black abalones

Federal wildlife officials on Wednesday issued a final ruling designating about 140 square miles of critical habitat for endangered black abalone along the California coast.

The hard-shelled, edible marine snails were once abundant in rocky intertidal areas from the state's northernmost waters down to the tip of Baja California, but their numbers plummeted in the 1980s, mostly due to a bacterial disease called withering syndrome.

The decline may have been worsened by warming coastal waters, power plant discharges, overfishing and poaching, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Fisheries Service.

Black abalone was listed as an endangered species in 2009, which requires the government to set aside as much critical habitat as possible to aid their recovery.

In the areas, which stretch from Del Mar Landing Ecological Reserve in Sonoma County south to the Palos Verdes Peninsula and Catalina Island, projects that go before federal agencies or receive federal funding will be reviewed to make sure they do not threaten black abalone habitat.

The rule will take effect next month.

Excluded from the designation was an area of rocky habitat from Corona del Mar State Beach to Dana Point.

That was because "the economic benefits of exclusion outweigh the benefits of inclusion, and the exclusion will not result in the extinction of the species," according to a NOAA news release.

Black abalone are one of seven abalone species that live in California waters, typically wedged between rocks near the shore.

Their commercial harvest dates back to the 1800s and peaked in the 1970s. The fishery was closed in 1993 after landings plunged by 95%.

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Photo: Black abalone cluster together in a rocky, intertidal crag on San Nicolas Island. Credit: David Witting / NOAA Restoration Center.

Graphic: Black abalone critical habitat. Credit: NOAA

Heal the Bay: Long Beach water quality improves dramatically

The waters off Long Beach -- long among the most contaminated in the state -- have improved dramatically in the last year, according to a new report that gives the city's beaches their highest water-quality ratings in a decade.

All the beaches in the city earned grades of A or B in the environmental group Heal the Bay’s End of Summer Beach Report Card.

Statewide, 92% of California beaches earned A or B grades this year, the same as last year, according to the report.

But the picture was not rosy at some Southern California beaches.

Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro earned an F for the eighth consecutive summer despite millions of dollars spent on municipal projects to improve water quality.

Also flunking were a number of popular beaches in Malibu, including Surfrider Beach, Malibu Pier, Solstice Canyon at Dan Blocker County Beach, Carbon Beach at Sweetwater Canyon and Topanga State Beach.

The annual report by Heal the Bay evaluated hundreds of beaches in California, Oregon and Washington from Memorial Day to Labor Day, giving them grades based on tests for bacterial pollution, which indicate how likely the water is to make swimmers sick.

Read the full story.

-- Tony Barboza

Photo: The Los Angeles River cascades under the Anaheim Street bridge on its way to Long Beach Harbor. Credit: Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times

A century later, Santa Cruz Island wetland to be restored

 
A major restoration project could bring back a long-degraded wetland to one of the Channel Islands.

Workers have broken ground on a $1-million project that will cut down 1,800 nonnative eucalyptus trees and scoop out tons of dirt and gravel to restore a coastal wetland on Santa Cruz Island, Channel Islands National Park officials announced Monday.

In the coming months, crews will work to return some 60 acres of habitat on the rugged island to the way it was before being degraded by ranching and farming activity more than a century ago.

Crews have started using heavy equipment to reshape the mouth of the island’s largest stream so it will flow freely onto 4 acres of restored wetland at Prisoners Harbor.

The anchorage on the north side of the island was once home to the largest coastal wetland in the Channel Islands, an archipelago of five ecologically distinct islands that are sometimes referred to as North America’s Galapagos.

Read the full story.

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-- Tony Barboza

Photo:  Aerial view of Santa Cruz Island. Credit: Al Seib

Rising sea levels could take financial toll on California beaches

Beach communities in California will suffer huge economic losses in tourism and tax revenues as rising sea levels eat away at the California coastline over the next century, according to a state-commissioned study released Tuesday.

As climate change warms the ocean, causing it to swell, storm damage and erosion will narrow the state's beaches and diminish their appeal to tourists, recreational visitors and wildlife, economists at San Francisco State predict.

Venice Beach could lose up to $440 million in tourism and tax revenue if the Pacific Ocean rises 55 inches by 2100 as scientists predict, according the study commissioned by the California Department of Boating and Waterways.

A drop in visitors to an eroded Zuma Beach and Broad Beach in Malibu would cost nearly $500 million in revenue, the study found.

At San Francisco’s Ocean Beach, the increasingly erosive power of storm surges could cause $540 million in damage to land, buildings and infrastructure by century’s end, researchers project.

The study also examined Torrey Pines in San Diego County and Carpinteria in Santa Barbara County. Read the full story on L.A. Now.

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Shark fin soup one step closer to being banned in California

-- Tony Barboza

Photo: Waves slam into homes in Malibu. Credit: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times

Shark fin soup one step closer to being banned in California

 
The days of being able to order shark fin soup at California restaurants appear to be numbered.

The state Senate on Tuesday voted 25-9 to ban the sale, trade and possession of shark fin, a key ingredient in the traditional Chinese soup, sending the bill on to the desk of Gov. Jerry Brown.

The measure, championed by conservation groups as a way to curb the shark fin harvest, a practice that has contributed to the sharp decline of shark numbers worldwide, has divided California's Chinese American community.

For centuries the gelatinous soup prepared with dried shark fins has been served as a pricey Chinese delicacy, and opponents of the bill say banning the ingredient would discriminate against a cultural tradition.

Chinese American restaurateurs and traders have lobbied against the bill and are being backed by several Chinese American lawmakers.

Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) has called it "an unfair attack on Asian culture and cuisine." But other Chinese American legislators, chefs and celebrities, including basketball star Yao Ming, have backed conservationists.

Lawmakers on Tuesday also approved a second bill adding several key provisions. Among them: creating an exemption allowing taxidermists to possess shark fins, allowing licensed fishermen to donate shark fins to research institutions and giving restaurants longer to use up their stocks of the ingredient.

“Today is a landmark day for shark conservation around the globe as we are one step away from a sweeping West Coast ban on the trade of shark fins,” said Susan Murray, senior pacific director for the conservation group Oceana.

Similar legislation has been signed in Washington, Oregon and Hawaii. President Obama signed federal legislation tightening a ban on shark finning in U.S. waters this year.

Gov. Jerry Brown has not indicated publicly whether he intends to sign the bill.

The state Assembly passed the bill in May on a 65-8 vote, but it ran into Senate opposition, including proposed amendments to allow the sale of fins from some shark species that can be legally caught in California.

But none of those amendments, which conservation groups worried would make the law ineffective and difficult to enforce, were approved.

Tens of millions of sharks are killed each year for their fins, and scientists say the fin trade threatens to disrupt ocean ecosystems. Fishermen cut the fins off live sharks, which they dump back in the water to die.

Assemblyman Paul Fong (D-Sunnyvale), a sponsor of the bill, was born in China and grew up eating shark fin soup but turned against it several years ago after watching a film about how the fin trade was wiping out shark populations.

“At this rate they're going to be extinct in our lifetime,” Fong said last month. “And without the top predator, our ocean's ecosystem goes into a huge imbalance and falls like a house of cards.”

“I'm proud of my Chinese roots, and our culture will live and survive without shark's fin,” he added. If signed by the governor, the California law would go into effect by mid-2013.

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-- Tony Barboza

Photo: A boy passes a sign showing Chinese basketball star Yao Ming, who supports the ban. Credit: Frederic J. Brown AFP/Getty Images.

Marine sanctuaries delayed in Southern California

 
Hundreds of square miles of marine sanctuaries that were scheduled to take effect Oct. 1 in Southern California will be delayed for at least several months for administrative reasons, state wildlife officials said Thursday.

The California Department of Fish and Game said the state Office of Administrative Law has had questions about the complicated package of regulations and informed the agency it would not be able to implement them by the planned start date.

In December the California Fish and Game Commission adopted protections for about 15% of state waters from Point Conception to the U.S.-Mexico border. Under the California Marine Life Protection Act, fishing will be banned or restricted in 49 marine protected areas to protect sea life and replenish depleted fish populations.

Though it's unclear how long the delay will be, "we're looking at months rather than years, or even a year," said Jordan Traverso, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Fish and Game.

The delay is unrelated to lawsuits fishing groups have filed against the regulations, Traverso said. The commission will discuss a new start date at a meeting next month in Redding.

Southern California's marine reserves are the latest segment in a chain of sanctuaries Fish and Game officials are charged with establishing up and down the coast. They came about after years of contentious negotiations between conservation groups seeking sweeping protections for marine habitat and commercial and recreational fishing groups trying to hold onto access to key fishing areas.

Newly protected waters will include a kelp forest off Point Dume in Malibu, Naples Reef in Santa Barbara County, a stretch of the Laguna Beach coastline and waters off south La Jolla.

The region sees the most fishing activity in the state because of its dense population and many harbors.

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--Tony Barboza

Photo: A lengthy stretch of the Laguna Beach coastline will be one of the state's new marine sanctuaries. Credit: Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times

California shark fin ban advances

This post has been corrected. See note below for details.

A push to outlaw shark fins, the main ingredient in a traditional Chinese soup, cleared a key obstacle Thursday when it passed a state Senate committee.

The bill, which would ban the sale, trade and possession of shark fins in the state, has been championed by conservation groups as a way to curb their harvest, a practice that has contributed to the sharp decline of shark populations worldwide.

But the measure has divided California’s Chinese American community. For centuries the gelatinous soup prepared with dried shark fins has been served as a pricey Chinese delicacy, and opponents say banning it would discriminate against a cultural tradition.

The bill passed the Senate Appropriations Committee on a 5-2 vote and now moves to the Senate floor, where a vote is expected within the next few weeks.

The California State Assembly passed the ban in May, 65 to 8, but it ran into obstacles in the upper house.

Chinese American restaurateurs and traders have lobbied against the ban and are being backed by several Chinese American lawmakers, including Sen. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance), who voted against the measure Thursday. Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) has called it "an unfair attack on Asian culture and cuisine."

On the other side are conservationists, who are supported by some Chinese American lawmakers, chefs and celebrities, including basketball star Yao Ming. Tens of millions of sharks are killed each year for their fins and scientists say the fin trade threatens to disrupt ocean ecosystems. To harvest the fins, fishermen cut them off live sharks and dump them back in the water to die.

Assemblyman Paul Fong (D-Sunnyvale), a sponsor of the bill, was born in China and grew up eating shark fin soup but turned against it several years ago after watching a film about how the fin trade was wiping out shark populations.

“At this rate they're going to be extinct in our lifetime,” Fong said in an interview. “And without the top predator, our ocean's ecosystem goes into a huge imbalance and falls like a house of cards.”

“I'm proud of my Chinese roots, and our culture will live and survive without shark's fin,” he added.

Similar legislation has been signed in Washington, Oregon and Hawaii. President Obama signed federal legislation tightening a ban on shark finning in U.S. waters this year.

If approved by the Senate and signed by the governor, the California law would go into effect in 2013.

For the record, 2:45 p.m. Aug. 25: A previous version of this post misattributed a quote to Sen. Ted Lieu. It is Sen. Leland Yee who has called the ban "an unfair attack on Asian culture and cuisine."

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Photo: Shark fins drying on a boat in Micronesia. The California Senate has moved forward to ban sale, trade and possession of the culinary delicacy. Credit: Associated Press

Agency seeks to end sea otter relocations, to allow them off SoCal

After 24 years of barring sea otters from most Southern California waters and trying to establish a colony for the threatened animals on San Nicolas Island, federal wildlife officials on Wednesday announced a proposal to abandon the program, saying it failed to help the threatened species recover.

The proposal announced Wednesday by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would allow sea otters to expand naturally into their historic range off Southern California and officially put an end to a relocation program long criticized as ineffective and harmful to the marine mammals.

Starting in 1987, federal officials relocated 140 sea otters from Monterey Bay to San Nicolas Island, 60 miles off the coast, to try to establish a new population of southern sea otters there in case a disaster, such as an oil spill, threatened them with extinction.

As part of a compromise with fishing groups, the government declared waters from Point Conception to the Mexican border a “no-otter zone” and promised to round up any otters that strayed into waters along the Southern California mainland, where they dine on the same shellfish fishermen seek.

But the new colony failed to take hold as many of the otters relocated to the island swam away to return to their parent population along the Central Coast, disappeared or died.

“About half of the otters we brought out there, we don’t really know what happened to them,” said Lilian Carswell, southern sea otter recovery coordinator with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “We learned that the basic, underlying concept was flawed: that you can move sea otters in this mechanistic way and expect them to do what you want them to do instead of what they want to do.”

Under the plan, the 46 otters that remain at San Nicolas Island would be allowed to stay there and would no longer be considered an experimental population as they have for more than two decades. Sea otters in Southern California would be given the same protections as those along the Central Coast.

The Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to release a draft of the decision by next month under a settlement agreement last year with the Otter Project and Environmental Defense Center, conservation groups that sued the agency in 2009 to force them to end the program.

In a joint statement, Defenders of Wildlife, Friends of the Sea Otter, the Humane Society of the United States and the Monterey Bay Aquarium applauded the decision, calling the no-otter zone “ineffective and harmful."

“For sea otters to have a real shot at recovery, they must be allowed to return to their historic range off the coast of Southern California,” they said. “If sea otters thrive again throughout their historic range, the entire marine ecosystem will benefit.”

By the early 1990s it became clear to federal wildlife officials that otters being relocated from Southern California to the Central Coast were dying after being released and that enforcing an artificial boundary was not helping restore the population. The last time the Fish and Wildlife Service moved otters out of Southern California waters was in 1993.

“Nobody really thought that you could take an ocean-going animal and draw an imaginary line and tell it not to go there,” said Jim Curland, marine program associate with Defenders of Wildlife. “People were very skeptical that you could take an animal, physically move it to an island and expect it to stay.”

In 1999 large numbers of male and juvenile sea otters started moving seasonally into Southern California as they searched for shellfish and other food. Fishermen filed suit against the Fish and Wildlife Service for not moving them north, and the government responded with a biological opinion that said it would jeopardize the population to continually move them out of Southern California and limit the expansion of their range.

Historically, southern sea otters inhabited waters from Oregon to Baja California, numbering 16,000 in the 19th century. They were nearly wiped out by fur traders who hunted them for their pelts, and by the early 1900s just a small remnant colony of 50 survived along the coast of Big Sur. In 1977 they were protected as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.

Since then, sea otters have made a slow recovery and today number about 2,800 in California. But as they have exhausted food sources along the Central Coast, wildlife officials now believe the only way for their population to continue its recovery is to allow them to venture wherever they want.

“The goal is to have sea otters really functioning as part of the near-shore marine ecosystem,” Carswell said.

The Fish and Wildlife Service is asking for public comments on the plan in the next 60 days. The decision could be made final by 2012.

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--Tony Barboza

Photo: A sea otter dines on shellfish in Monterey Bay. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times.

Peter Douglas, California Coastal Commission chief, will retire

Peter Douglas, an aggressive opponent of development on the California coast who helped write the state's landmark Coastal Act, announced his retirement Wednesday after 26 years as executive director of the California Coastal Commission.

Douglas, 68, who has been fighting lung cancer since last spring, told the panel he will go on sick leave Monday and will retire on Nov. 1.

The executive has been the muscle behind the agency in charge of enforcing the nation’s strongest coastal protection law and has spent 41 years working to guarantee public access to the state’s 1,100-mile coastline while keeping it largely undeveloped.

In remarks at a public meeting in Watsonville, Douglas said he planned to hand off leadership of the agency to Senior Deputy Director Charles Lester, who has been filling in while Douglas has undergone aggressive chemotherapy. But it is ultimately up to the 12-member panel to choose a new leader.

Douglas began his crusade for coastal protection in the 1970s as a legislative aide and consultant, helping to draft Proposition 20, which voters passed in 1972, and the 1976 state Coastal Act, which created the Coastal Commission. After serving as the agency’s chief deputy, he was named its third executive director in 1985.

Since then, Douglas is credited with transforming the start-up panel into an influential land-use agency that has final say in nearly all development proposed along the coastline, from single-family homes, docks and beach stairways to the largest projects, such as subdivisions, marinas, highways and power plants.

Douglas is beloved by conservationists, but he has been a lightning rod for developers and property owners who have fought with the agency over beachside projects and public access to the shoreline. Local governments often have clashed with Douglas over his agency’s challenges to what they consider local matters, such as beach curfews, beach pathways and parking restrictions. He has served under both Democratic and Republican governors and survived a number of attempts at ousting him.

State Senate President Darrell Steinberg said the preservation of California’s magnificent coastline wouldn’t have happened without Douglas, whom he called “the driving force in creating the nation’s most comprehensive coastal protections.”

“Without Peter’s unwavering voice for environmental protection and public access,” Steinberg said in a statement, “millions of Californians and visitors from around the world would have been denied the enjoyment of our pristine coastline.”

Douglas was not available for comment Wednesday, but he released a biography and personal comments that highlighted key accomplishments, including empowering citizen activists across the state, opening new public accessways to the coast and, in the 1980s, requiring the Jonathan Club, a club then made up only of white males, to open its doors to women and people of color in order to expand its Santa Monica facility.

Speaking in June at a conference in Sacramento about the Coastal Commission, Douglas told a room packed with both admirers and foes that he was proudest of subdivisions that were not built and wetlands that were not filled.

He said one of the agency's biggest challenges will be “implementing a visionary law in a myopic political world.”

Protecting the coast “is a job that’s never done, it’s always being done,” he said. “It’s what we owe future generations. We’re not going away.”

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-- Tony Barboza

Photo: Peter Douglas listens during public comment at a 1996 Coastal Commission hearing in Huntington Beach. Credit: Los Angeles Times

Pacific Ocean study finds fish tainted by plastic

Southern California researchers found plastic in nearly 1 in 10 small fish collected in the northern Pacific Ocean in the latest study to call attention to floating marine debris entering the food chain.

The study published this week by scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego estimated that fish in the northern Pacific Ocean are ingesting as much as 24,000 tons of plastic each year.

Although the research found a lower percentage of affected fish than previous studies, it is the latest to quantify how many fish are eating marine garbage — most of it confetti-sized flecks of discarded plastic — that has accumulated in vast, slow-moving ocean currents known as gyres.

The results came from a 2009 voyage a group of graduate students made to the so-called Pacific garbage patch, an area of high concentration of fragments of floating garbage about 1,000 miles off the California coast. Researchers cast nets into the water and collected 141 fish, mostly lanternfish measuring just a few inches, and took them to a laboratory in San Diego to dissect.

Scientists found plastic debris in 9.2% of their stomachs, much of it broken down into multicolored fragments smaller than a human fingernail. However, they believe the actual proportion of fish that have consumed plastic is significantly higher.

“We can’t tell how many fish ate plastic and died, how many fish ate plastic and regurgitated it or passed it out of their intestines,” said Rebecca Asch, a Scripps doctoral candidate in biological oceanography and one of the study's authors.

Because the widespread lanternfish is a common food source for larger fish, the study raises concerns that plastics and pollutants they contain, could be making their way up the food chain into seafood ingested by humans.