Saving Seafood

Monterey Bay and parts of Big Sur added to expanded killer whale protection

August 4, 2021 — The federal government Monday expanded its critical habitat area for the endangered southern killer whale population that now includes all of Monterey Bay and a portion of the waters off the Big Sur coast.

The new critical habitat designation also added a large portion of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary down to Point Sur, about 25 miles south of Monterey. The new designation takes effect on Sept. 1.

The demise of what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, calls the Southern Resident population of killer whales is the result of a number of factors, including the lack of its primary food source: chinook salmon

Read the full story at Mercury News

CALIFORNIA: A new program aims to put locally caught fish onto more local plates, regardless of income.

December 3, 2020 — Walter Deyerle, captain of the F/V SeaHarvest IV, explains the basics of the process he and his crew undertake to land sablefish in the waters of the Monterey Bay.

First they lay out a long line, usually set with 2,000 pre-baited hooks, on rods that carry 250 hooks each. The hooks are set 18 inches apart and once the lines are dropped, they expand over about two-thirds of a mile over the sea floor.

Three hours later, the lines are pulled back onto the boat.

“And hopefully,” Deyerle says, “there’s a lot of fish on them.”

A lot of fish means something different during the Covid-19 pandemic. Restaurants are ordering less because there are fewer customers. Exports to Japan are down, because they too have less demand. But when fishing is your life’s work – as it is for Deyerle and his entire family, with aunts and uncles who own the Sea Harvest restaurants, his father running a fish-processing plant while working alongside Walt and his brother, also a commercial fisherman – there has to be a way to get local catch into local bellies.

Read the full story at Monterey County Now