I remember when the oil derrick blew off the Santa Barbara Coastline in 1969. Suddenly everything changed. The thick slicks surged shoreward, the beaches closed and the seabirds scattered like dead tar babies on the sand. The rich bird rookeries and marine mammals of the Channel Islands offshore suffered greatly. The loss of tourism hit the region hard.

Today, the remaining oil rigs remain as icons off the Santa Barbara Coastline, the constant sludge and thin brown haze reminding us of the costs of offshore drilling.

These islands are now part of the National Marine Sanctuary system but remain exposed to the threat of another large oil spill.

The potential for a domestic disaster has been underscored by the Gulf spill. Until the BP Gulf crisis reminded the nation that these accidents can be catastrophic, oil exploration off the Northern Coastline had been under consideration by the Obama Administration. Some prudent political backpedaling quickly shelved that idea, but there is an underlying movement to drill the reserves off the Mendocino and Sonoma coast, as well as expand exploration in Santa Barbara Santa Monica and La Jolla.

Sanctuaries Expansion

Last month Representative Lynn Woolsey renewed her push to expand the marine sanctuaries and thus permanently ban offshore oil drilling off much of the North Coast. Oil drilling is expressly prohibited in marine sanctuaries, but commercial fishing is allowed. Drilling is currently banned off the coast until 2017, but sanctuary status would make that permanent.

Currently the Monterey, Gulf of the Farallones, and Cordell Bank Marine sanctuaries protect almost 8,000 square miles of ocean. The Woolsey proposal would expand the sanctuaries up to Point Arena in Mendocino County to permanently protect this important region from oil exploration.

But the head of the oil industry's most powerful trade group challenged the Obama administration's decisions last year to preclude oil and gas leases off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

A report released by the American Petroleum Institute estimates that there are 10.5 billion barrels of untapped oil reserves on the Pacific coast. It calls on Congress and the White House to “re-examine and reconsider limits” on drilling.

However, the Outer Continental Shelf off of Northern California is only estimated to hold 5% of the technically recoverable undiscovered oil reserves that are already available for leasing in the Gulf of Mexico. If all these reserves were recovered, it would only amount to about 100 days of US oil consumption.

A Major Upwelling Zone

The reason the Northern coast is so abundant with marine life is the phenomena called upwelling,

At Point Arena upwelling occurs at the edge of the Continental Shelf. Cold, nutrient rich water from the deep sea rises, creating plankton blooms which in turn feed fish, birds and whales. This nutrient rich current is carried south along the Sonoma and Marin coastlines creating an abundance of rockfish, crabs and other commercial species. Although less than 1 % of the ocean, over half of fisheries occurs in upwelling regions such as the one north of the Cordell Bank. This natural conveyor belt supports sea life and the lives of fishermen in our communities.

In 2006, commercial fishery landings in Crescent City, Eureka and Fort Bragg totaled $39.8 million dollars. Across California, commercial fishing and associated businesses accounted for almost $10 billion in sales, $5 billion in income and almost 200,000 jobs in 2006. Roughly 1.5 million recreational anglers took 4.5 million fishing trips that year, supporting over 20,000 jobs and accounting for almost $4 billion in sales and $2 billion in value-added services.

Protecting this upwelling zone form catastrophic damage will protect more than fish: it will protect jobs.

The Sanctuary Bill Will Protect Fishing

Woolsey has called for bipartisan support of the sanctuary measure, saying it would “help the economy by preserving jobs in the fishing industry and creating new ones in the tourist industry.” It will also protect the sensitive upwelling regions so vital for fish and fishermen. If the area does become a sanctuary, fishing will still be permitted. Fishing advocates like the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen supports the Sanctuary Expansion idea.

Protecting this source of nutrients and larvae will protect fisheries at the source. Pollution from offshore platforms, the risk of invasive species being introduced by oil rigs brought from overseas, harmful effects of seismic air guns used for exploration, and the possible catastrophic damage from an oil spill are too great of a risk to fisheries and to the nearby National Marine Sanctuaries for the minimal economic benefits of drilling.

In a similar upwelling zone south of Point Conception rows of oil derricks line the Santa Barbara Channel. Forty years after the spill, ships ply back and forth, flares burn in the night sky and a thin film covers the water. A few miles beyond, the Channel Islands break the horizon, an invisible line dividing the Sanctuary from the oil.

The Gulf can happen here. The question is will we allow it or will we act to protect our natural resources and our jobs from harm.

The Sanctuary expansion would be a legacy for our coastline, and ensure future generations the enjoyment of fish and all marine life.

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Got Crabs? It's opening day for San Francisco’s favorite crustacean: the Dungeness crab.

Got Crabs? Dungeness Crab: San Francisco’s Favorite Crustacean.

The Giants, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Crab of Fisherman’s Wharf – these images are all icons of the City by the Bay. Of the three listed, the crab fishery surpasses all in age, and rival the others in importance to our heritage and history. From the Italian Feluccas who founded Fisherman’s Wharf to the current skippers of family owned crab boats, the Dungeness crab fishery defines our maritime heritage. Today, the local crab fishery is the single-most important commercial fishery left to our local fishermen.

Last week I joined a crew and went crab fishing. A small chop crossed the bar. With the summer fog gone, the day was bright and clear. Backing the small vessel to the blue and white buoy, Captain Steve Shirley leans over and snags the buoy among others of various colors just ten yards from Baker Beach. Grunting with exertion, Steve hands over hands sixty feet of polypropylene yellow rope. Eventually a large round cage emerges from the brine and heaving the cage aboard, fifteen crabs squirm inside the mesh. “Nice haul!” Steve grins and taking a metal gauge measures the width of the shell and sorts the crabs. To protect fisheries, California requires fishermen to return small crabs and females back to the ocean.

On opening day last week (following a shark tagging trip), I joined my colleagues of Team Fish Finder on the Tiburon and helped pull traps off Baker Beach. In truth, having an interest to make a documentary on local fisheries, I malingered and filmed the whole affair. Steve and his crew hauled several more traps, some disappointing, and others containing several legal sized crabs. Fishing seasons are built around the “3 S’s”: size, sex and season. The males with shells over 6.25 inches in width went into the cooler as the smalls, fresh molts and all females went back into the water. We also pulled in the smaller rock crabs that Steve returned to the water. The traps – or pots as they are called – are composed of wire mesh, equipped with an odorous mixture of fish guts and heads and two doors sized to allow big crabs in I but small crabs out. With an average haul, we steamed back beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, joining a fleet of small boats heading home with the first season’s crabs.

Crabs are based not only on size but also the fullness or fat content. The test crabs are looking a little thin so the California Fish and Game delayed opening the commercial season for the Central Coast region until today. While we are thinking of fresh cracked crab or a Crab Louie, the commercial fisherman depending on a good haul for most of their annual income are likely wondering, "Will it be good year?"

It’s a cyclical fishery and important economically. In the last ten years, San Francisco’s open-ocean crab catch has varied from a high of six million pounds in 2009-2008 to a 10-year low of 1.1 million in 1999-2000.

The 1.1 million tons of Dungeness crab harvested off the coast of San Francisco was less than one-third of the average annual local catch recorded over the past decade, Department of Fish and Game figures show. However, last year’s catch rebounded to 14.7 million tons worth 33 million dollars. With the salmon closure and the crash of the herring population crab season has grown increasingly important for Bay Area fishermen.

It’s the Pots. Out-of Town Fishermen Impacting Local Fishery

There are more complicated issues than seasonal variability affecting the local fishery. Aside from the Cosco Busan disaster seriously impacting the fishery in 2007, there are regulatory and market forces at work. The Central California crab season opens two weeks earlier than in Oregon and Washington State and both those states have large commercial crab fishing vessels who can set hundreds of traps at a set.

These larger vessels steam down and fish the season opener in the Bay (typically the best haul of crabs), and return with full holds to fish their own opener. While some sell locally and lower the price by saturating the market, still others are fishing heavily and offloading in the northern ports.

Unlike Washington and Oregon, California has no limits on the number of traps or pots that each boat can set, meaning that the large boats can catch huge amounts of crab in just a few days. The best quality crab is a live crab. The crabs caught in the large vessels sit in a hold and are off loaded damaged, dead and dying. Where our local industry is small and family owned, fishing each day and providing fresh crab to local buyers, the large boats can stay out for days in rough weather and get 30,000 to 50,000 pounds per trip. Much of this crab is exported and canned.

Besides the increased pressure on the crab population, there are other problems introduced by the increased number of pots. The opener has the best catch, creating a race to fish. This forces the smaller boats to put themselves at greater risk in an already dangerous fishery. Also, despite built-in design for small crabs or other animals to escape, pots break loose in storms becoming “ghost traps” which keep fishing and killing crabs without potential to recover. Mariners also are concerned that the large numbers of pots are a navigation hazard.

The Dungeness Crab Task Force: Legislation to Limit Crab Pots

Local crabbers would like to see a limit on traps set. In recent years two bills have been passed to limit the number of traps but were vetoed by the Governor. Currently, there is new hope that a solution may be coming. State Senator Pat Wiggins (Second District representing North Bay to Eureka) has authored legislation (SB1690) establishing a Dungeness Crab Task Force. Composed of crabbers and crab processors from around California, the task force has made several recommendations including limiting pot limits, pot design and other measures to help local fishermen. The task force proposed additional amendments to the pending legislation which will impact pot limit proposals. Until this legislation works its way through committees and is signed by the governor these limits will not be in effect.

With the loss of salmon, rock cod, halibut and tuna, our local fleet depend on a healthy crab fishery to maintain their livelihood and the fishing heritage of San Francisco. Until limitations are applied, our local crabbers will be setting pots alongside the larger out-of-state vessels.

Until the legislation makes its way through committees, we can support our local fishermen by buying fresh local crab in season only from local boats or from local fishmongers who purchase directly from San Francisco Bay fishermen. Like all seafood choices, we should avoid buying unsustainable seafood from large warehouse chains (starts with a C- ends with an o) and question where our fish comes from and how it was caught.

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Pacific sardines at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Photo: Adventures in Librarianship.

It’s back to school—for students, and for Pacific sardines. Pacific sardines, Sardinops sagax, were once wildly abundant along the coast of California, Oregon, and Washington. From the 1920s to through the 1940s, they supported the largest fishery in the United States—millions were caught in and around Monterey Bay. (In fact, the Monterey Bay Aquarium was once a sardine canning factory.) Though the Pacific sardine population crashed in the mid-1940s, it’s on the rise again.

While overfishing may have played a role in the population crash in the 1940s, oceanographic conditions were also very influential. The size of the Pacific sardine population fluctuates; their numbers increase when water is warm, and decrease when water is cold. This has been happening for quite some time; fish scales from sediments in the Santa Barbara Basin show that the sardines have been going through a boom-and-bust cycle for the past 1700 years.

In recent years, Pacific sardine numbers have been increasing steadily. Fishing started up again in California in the 1980s; by 2000, fisheries had been re-established off the coasts of Oregon and Washington, too. These days, Pacific sardines are doing fine. The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Guide lists sardines as a “best choice.”

However, another schooling fish, Atlantic Herring isn’t doing quite as well. Many species of schooling fish are caught not for human consumption, but to feed poultry, livestock, and fish in the aquaculture industry. They’re processed into fishmeal and fish oil. This is a bit of a problem. Schooling fish (called clupeoid fish, for all of you aficionados) are an important part of the food web. They eat plankton, and in turn are eaten by larger predatory fish, marine mammals, and birds. Taking schooling fish out of the ocean, so they can be food for our other food, has serious repercussions for the marine food web.

Fish swim in schools to protect themselves from predators. But this strategy doesn’t really work when humans are the major predator, with our purse seines and spotting planes. Pacific sardines have recovered because of good fisheries management and favorable ocean conditions. Hopefully other fish will have a similar opportunity to go back to school.

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"One of my favorites is this one here," says my host, Senior Wildlife Forensic Specialist Jeff Rodzen, "we have a bird who choked to death on the head of a lizard." Hmm. A favorite? Maybe compared to the others lining the wall: jars filled with parasitic worms, a tule elk fetus, a see-through rabbit where you can see every bone.

Add in the bighorn sheep skull among the modern equipment, and the paws sticking up in the back of the evidence and it made for a surreal day of reporting.

Welcome to the autopsy and necropsy room at the California Fish and Game office in Rancho Cordova, about 12 miles east of Sacramento. This is the place where blood and hair and small fibers from wildlife crime scenes are DNA-matched for all the poaching cases in California.

This is a fascinating place, if a little macabre. And it was the starting point for a QUEST radio story that had many more story lines than I could possibly pursue in one feature.

• I learned about a canine program designed to track down poachers, and an offshoot of that program that actually sniffs out invasive species like Quagga mussels.
• I found out how dangerous the job of Game Warden actually is, and the reasons it’s so hard to recruit new officers.
• And I found out how complicated poaching can become, and how endemic it is in California.
• I discovered there’s a subculture of poaching.

Some poachers hit the country backroads late at night, right after the bars close, and Game Warden Todd Tognazzini said those are the easier ones to catch. But the ones who are good at it use sophisticated communications equipment, night-vision sights on their guns, and small, strong flashlights to stun wild pigs or deer into standing still. This is called "spotlighting." Some poachers will black out their brake lights, run on roads without headlights, and use other ingenious ways to keep a low profile while they illegally hunt wild animals.

Game warden is one of the most dangerous law enforcement jobs around– after all, you're going into a remote area, with no backup, to confront people who are carrying guns and knives. Would any urban police officer do that? There is a dearth of game wardens in California, partly due to decades of budget cuts. Last thing I found: The newest high-tech method of tracking down poachers is actually pretty low-tech. Dogs. A new canine program helps game wardens find illegal animal kills. Not surprisingly, poachers hide their contraband, and it's not easy for game wardens to find it. Lieutenant Kristie Wurster is stationed in Alpine County, near Placerville. She’s one of 18 wardens in the canine-training program, and she uses her dog Wrigley to sniff out illegal fishing and hunting. .

Wurster estimates the dog saves about 800 man-hours of work a year. "We are so small in numbers and we just tip the iceberg of how much poaching is going on," she says. "That’s why I’m so excited about the program, to have another set of eyes and ears – and nose – to be able to detect the issues."

Listen to the "Wildlife CSI" Radio report online, and check out our photo set on Flickr which includes: photos of a game warden at work tracking poachers in the foothills of southern Monterey County, as well as deer, boar, abalone and other illegally killed animals.

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Another species that TOPP (Tagging of Pacific Predators) is tracking is the Leatherback Turtle. Reaching 7 feet long and weighing 2000 pounds, leatherbacks have survived in the world's oceans for 100 million years. Now they may only have decades left. While sea turtles are not being commercially fished, they still face daunting challenges in the open ocean. They are often accidentally caught and drowned in fisherman's long-lines and nets. And pollution is also taking a nasty toll. In the water, common plastic bags look very similar to the turtles' favorite food: jellyfish. The problem is, plastic bags aren’t easy to digest. But the biggest problem the turtles face may be on land. Over harvesting of turtle eggs has long been a problem for sea turtles but now the biggest concern is over development of their nesting beaches. Turtles need a sandy beach to lay their eggs. Unfortunately, people also enjoy vacationing in the same type of places. Humans looking for that seaside getaway are quickly gobbling up the sea turtles nesting grounds. Researchers are now working hard to save these vital nesting grounds to make sure the turtles can survive.

Watch the "Tagging Pacific Predators " TV Story online, as well as find additional links and resources. Also don't miss our Web Extra: Tagging Pacific Predators Extended Interview with scientist Barbara Block of the Tuna Research and Conservation Center.

Chris Bauer is a Segment Producer for television on QUEST.

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If you haven't read it already, see my Producer's Notes blog post for this story for the real scoop on squid.


View the web-exclusive premiere of "The Fierce Humboldt Squid," our first Season 2 QUEST TV story. Season 2 begins on broadcast TV next Tuesday, April 1 at 7:30pm on KQED, Channel 9 in Northern California.


See additional photos of these fearsome leviathans of the deep, including close-up tentacles, beaks and an actual squid necropsy.

Chris Bauer is a Segment Producer for television on QUEST, and is the producer for this story.

Humboldt Squid – known as "Diablos Rojos".

I get seasick.

Still, I love being out on the ocean and never turn down the chance to get out beyond the breakers. We set out on the charter fishing boat Huli Cat from Pillar Point Harbor near Half Moon Bay. The boat was aiming for an area the captain called the “Dover Grounds,” about 20 miles out to sea. On the way, we passed a migrating pod of Humpback whales, coming so close that we could smell their breath as they spouted. We passed through vast fields of pink jellyfish that covered the surface as far as the eye could see. We saw mola mola (or ocean sunfish) rising to the surface to be cleaned by waiting seagulls. As we got closer to our destination, a gang of playful porpoises caught up to the boat and began surfing the bow wave.

Producer Chris Bauer fishes for squid -
and tries to stay on his feet.Just then, the boat’s radio cackled with Coast Guard chatter. A container ship had struck the Bay Bridge and was leaking vast amounts of oil into the San Francisco Bay. It seemed a world away and at that time we had no idea what kind of impact the oil spill would have on those very waters. The captain scanned the fish finder and we drifted to a stop. Fishermen began letting out their lines and a lone albatross landed off the stern. He looked at me in a curious way, maybe wondering why I appeared somewhat greener than the other people on the boat.

It was not long before the first Humboldt squid was pulling on a line. Soon all the anglers were straining at their reels. Fishing for Jumbo squid isn’t as much about finesse as it is about brute force. The rods seemed to be at the point of snapping and the angler’s arms burned as they reeled in Jumbo squid from 800 feet below.

So why are these animals arriving here in Northern California? And what impact does this “invasion” have on the fragile ocean ecosystem? As QUEST begins our second television season, we’ll join this trip and meet one of the foremost experts on Humboldt squid, Professor Bill Gilly from Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station. Tune in on Tuesday, April 1st, on our website or on KQED channel 9, to learn more about these amazing animals.

Chris Bauer is a Segment Producer for television on QUEST.