With the collapse of the West Coast’s salmon fishery, thousands of anglers have turned their attentions toward other more readily available species of fish, like rockfish, striped bass and lingcod. California halibut, though, may feel the hardest hit as a result of this so-called “effort shift” — especially now as the two- to three-foot flounder [...]
Each week during the spring along the shores of San Pablo Bay, tanker trucks hired by the Department of Fish and Game (DFG) deliver thousands of Chinook salmon smolts, born in hatcheries upstream, to strategic sites where the fish are released into the murky waters and, hopefully, into a future that includes a spawning run [...]
by Dan Bacher
John and Barbara Stephens-Lewallen, Mendocino County’s leading environmental activist couple, demanded that the Schwarzenegger administration stop the corrupt, fast-track Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative in a letter they presented to the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force for the North Coast Study Region on March 1. Their plea to halt the process was made the [...]
by Dan Bacher
The Pacific Fisheries Management Council (PFMC), a quasi-governmental body that manages West Coast fisheries, on February 11 released alarming numbers showing that California’s once most abundant salmon run collapsed to an all-time record low in 2009.
by Tim Stelloh
“Consensus” isn’t a word that comes to mind with the Marine Life Protection Act, Mendocino County branch.
by Tim Stelloh
It’s one of the career changes some of Mendo’s unemployed fishermen are pondering these days, according to a story about California’s non-existent commercial salmon industry–and what local fishermen are up to–in the LA Times today.
Coastal residents are protective of Mendocino County’s wild and rugged coastline — so protective that when the state announced a process for new marine protection zones, environmental groups and seafood harvesters started organizing. The State of California is drafting rules which will restrict activity in new areas off the Mendocino, Del Norte and Humboldt county [...]
by Daniel Mintz
Government agencies throughout the North Coast are against a controversial plan to create marine reserves and the county’s Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District will try to unite the region’s opposition forces into one group. Implementation of the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) is about to start in the North Coast region and the county’s Harbor [...]
by Daniel Mintz
The implementers of the state’s controversial Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) told a suspicious audience at Eureka’s Wharfinger Building that influ ence can be exerted through participation in a uniquely inclusive public process. That message, delivered at a June 22 workshop meeting, contradicts what’s been said locally in vari ous political and governmental arenas. In Humboldt County, [...]
by Bruce McEwen
The abalone fillet sizzled in a pan of seasoned butter. The wine was so cold the bottle sweated. A dash of brandy went into the pan, the alcohol caught and the chef flipped the fillet in a cloudlet of flame. An auspicious aroma escaped into the dining room where the tables were spread with linen, [...]
