News - Local - North Coast

Tuesday, Jul. 29, 2008

Morro Bay Fishing Industry Special Report: For Morro Bay fleet, the future relies on low-impact fishing

New model sees small amounts of fish caught on specialized gear and sold at premium prices

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Ask someone on the Morro Bay waterfront what commercial fishing will look like 10 years from now and you’ll get a lot of gloomy prognostications.

All say the industry is hanging on by its fingernails. But increasingly fishermen are beginning to believe that commercial fishing has a future.

“Those of us who are left in the industry won’t go without a fight,” said Morro Bay fisherman Mark Tognazzini.

They are also coming to realize that the fishing industry of the future will be very different than it is now. How fish are caught, how many of them are caught and how they are marketed to consumers is rapidly changing.

Gone are the days when large trawlers caught tons of fish and sold them at low prices.

In their place will be fishermen who use specialized gear to catch small amounts of fish and sell them for premium prices to consumers who want seafood that is sustainably and locally harvested.

Local efforts

Fishermen in San Luis Obispo County have embarked upon several programs that are intended to rebuild commercial fishing using this low-volume, high-value model.

The most important is a historic partnership among fishermen, environmentalists and the city of Morro Bay to upgrade the area’s antiquated trawler fishing fleet.

Morro Bay recently received a $130,000 grant from the state Coastal Conservancy to prepare a new business plan for the waterfronts in Morro Bay and Port San Luis and conduct sea trials on low-impact fishing gear.

“The project addresses the real needs of California fisheries as we enter a new era of fisheries conservation and management, regulatory reform, new ways to catch fish sustainably and new markets for these fish,” said Rod Fujita, a fisheries scientist with Environmental Defense, one of two groups involved in Central Coast fisheries issues.

The other group, The Nature Conservancy, now owns all of the trawl permits and vessels formerly owned by Morro Bay fishermen.

Michael Bell, Central Coast fisheries project manager with The Nature Conservancy, estimates that’s enough to eventually keep eight to 12 fishermen on the water.

Currently, only one fisherman is using the conservancy’s permits, but more will be needed to create steady supplies of seafood for local markets and restaurants.

The permits specifically require that any fish caught under the permits have to be landed at either Morro Bay or Port San Luis, thereby ensuring that the permits would benefit the local economy.

New gear needed

The first problem the partnership will tackle is to develop low-impact trawl gear.

Flatfish, such as halibut and sole, are notoriously hard to catch using anything but trawl nets because their mouths are so small they don’t readily bite a baited hook and their wide, flat bodies aren’t suitable for traps.

They are also looking at switching to hooks and lines and traps to catch a variety of rockfish, lingcod, spiny dogfish and sablefish, which have been targeted by trawlers.

The hope is that if a sustainable, low-impact fishing industry can be established, some areas of the ocean now closed to fishing could be reopened.

Sustainable, environmentally friendly techniques have another benefit.

They enable fishermen to produce a fresher, higher-quality catch than larger boats that stay out at sea longer. And this higher-quality fish can sell for more money.

Large trawls produce lower-quality catches because the fish at the bottom of the nets are crushed and beaten up. Unsightly fish are often only suitable for fish and chips and other cheaper seafood entrees.

The idea of developing sustainable fisheries has caught the attention of state resource managers.

Last year, the state established the California Fisheries Fund to provide low-interest loans to fishermen and communities to invest in innovative and sustainable fishing practices and business models, as is being done in Morro Bay.

The fund was established with a $2 million grant from the state Coastal Conservancy. The fund could grow to $17 million with public and private investments.

Meanwhile, research is under way to make fisheries management along the Central Coast more science-based.

Fishermen have long maintained that stock assessments are haphazard at best and result in catch limits that are too conservative.

Collaborative groups of local scientists, academics and fishermen including the San Luis Obispo Science and Ecosystem Alliance and the San Luis Obispo County Marine Interests Group have launched several fisheries research initiatives to fill in some of the scientific gaps and produce more accurate assessments.

This research also is intended to be a metric by which state fisheries authorities can gauge the effectiveness of the steps taken to protect fish stocks by monitoring how fish populations change over time.

During a recent visit to Morro Bay to get a briefing on the sustainable fisheries efforts there, Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara, told fishermen that their groundbreaking efforts to reinvent themselves have impressed policymakers in Washington, D.C.

“You are on the cutting edge of managing fisheries in a different way than your parents and those who went before you could ever imagine,” she said.