Are you a Pacific Coast Sailor?

[Flyingriki]

Originally Posted by roverhi

FWIW. One of the early exploitations of the California Coast was the slaughter of otters, sealions, etc. mostly for the hides. Nearly wiped out these animals by around 1840. With the predators gone, the abalone population exploded. That brought in Chinese divers who harvested the abalone, salted it, and shipped it back to China probably in ocean going junks. That to was a fairly short lived exploitation as the Chinese over collected the abolone so it was no longer economically feasible to collect and that trade collapsed

Will never forget the laughing at the dive shop in Monterey when we asked where the abs were....!

Just watched a good show on the growing great white population off the coast here. Five fold increase in shark attacks on the sea lions in the channel islands in 4 years. Helicopters telling swimmers on the beaches of SoCal to exit the water as they were near several great whites....! No more diving down there for me.

[Don C L]

Originally Posted by Flyingriki

Will never forget the laughing at the dive shop in Monterey when we asked where the abs were....!

Just watched a good show on the growing great white population off the coast here. Five fold increase in shark attacks on the sea lions in the channel islands in 4 years. Helicopters telling swimmers on the beaches of SoCal to exit the water as they were near several great whites....! No more diving down there for me.

Uh-oh, I was just snorkeling with my daughter out there last week. That's ok, there were about 400 kayakers out there too acting as decoys, or bait, for us, so I felt safe! So far still no issues at the islands that I know of, though there have been a few on the coast.

It was gratifying to see some sea stars out there, since that mystery illness swept through them. Rangers said they thought that disease had run its course, (we hope.) And we did see one black abalone without trying too hard, so that too is a bit of good news, since nearly all the abs were wiped out by that infection 30 years ago or so. There were a lot of turban snails, sea hares and the ubiquitous little purple urchins that leave a moonscape in their wake. The abs will have a better chance when those numbers are brought down by natural predation, if it ever shows up.