Anonymous - 6-10-2005 at 01:28 PM
http://www.sfbg.com/39/36/news_sea_of_cortez.html
By 2015 the Sea of Cortez will be fished out, and diners here will notice.
By Alastair Bland
June 8, 2005
RECENTLY, I rode Muni's N line train from my home in the Sunset District down to the Civic Center farmers market. I walked past the big apple stand at
the top of the Muni escalator, the kiwi man from Sacramento, the date man from Palm Springs, all the way down to the exotic fish stand. Among the
small species I saw laid out on the ice were red snapper, yellowtail snapper, corvina, and other natives of Mexico's Sea of Cortez. San Francisco is a
long way from that turquoise sea, and seeing those fish saddened me.
I recall my own days on the Cortez this spring. I hiked 300 miles south along the coast of Baja California, from March through mid-May. This land is
sparsely inhabited, and many times I encountered no one for stretches of 15 miles. But I did meet people, mainly fishermen who dwell for half the year
in rustic, ramshackle camps on the beach, working hard almost every single day.
These men fish from 20-foot skiffs called pangas. The boats are fitted with powerful outboard engines and can travel 30 miles an hour over smooth
seas, and they can be relied on to transport tons of fish through miles of stormy waters. The fishermen use longlines, handlines, and gillnets.
Harpoons, too, are launched by hand at sharks and manta rays ? and occasionally at federally protected sea turtles. This technology is archaic
compared to that of the great fish-factory ships that once came from Japan to fill their holds and return across the Pacific again, but panga
fishermen have been persistent in their efforts; the diversity and abundance of the Cortez's sea life are declining, and most people agree that we are
bearing witness today to an ecological travesty.
While fishermen of the Cortez still make good money ? as much as $200 a day (about 2,000 pesos) ? the older men who worked the Sea of Cortez in its
prime of health can attest that the grandeur of this sea has vanished.
In the 1970s, "we would see a fish boil right off the beach here ? yellowtail eating sardines ? so we would get in the boats and drive out," said
Fernando Alonzo Abiega, a 65-year-old resident of the quiet town of Mulege. "We used handlines with lures; we did not need bait. It was so rich. For
five minutes the fish would boil, then disappear. Then 200 meters away, they would rise again, and we would drive over and start again. And there were
sometimes snapper and bass up on the surface. Wow! The sea was so rich, my friend! Fantastic!"
Andres Higuera, 53, also of Mulege, has fished the Cortez since he was 8 years old, and each season, he said, the health of the fishery has declined.
I asked him if the days of commercial fishing are numbered in the Cortez, and he said, "Absolutely." I asked how many seasons were left. He squinted
and looked distantly, calculating and figuring, and finally he answered, "Nine or 10 years more. It is very sad."
But until that last roundup, in 2015 or so, the men of Baja California will tap into the seafood market so long as fishing remains profitable. Most
seem to regret the decline of life in the Sea of Cortez, but I met one man in the coastal village of Los Burros, 50 miles north of La Paz, who
shrugged, laughed, and said, "But as fish disappear, prices go up. I still make money."
At wholesale prices, fish of the Cortez are very cheap. A whole yellowtail sells for just 50" a pound on the Baja beaches. And the famous yellowfin
tuna (ahi, to sushi eaters) runs 60" a pound. Dried shark fins, eventually used for shark-fin soup, bring the men who catch the sharks just $1.30 a
pound. And the number one fish of all, the red snapper ? the real thing, not just California rockfish under a delicious pseudonym ? sells for only
$1.50 a pound on the beach.
So Baja California fishermen must catch lots of fish to pay their expenses ? most notably gasoline ? and the evidence of the fishing industry is
apparent near any coastal settlement. On beaches one will find three-foot-high heaps of filleted fish, all dried like cardboard in the desert sun. One
will also find shark and manta ray carcasses turning over in the surf ? scores of them ? still fresh and bloody where the fishermen butchered them.
The fishermen tend to be perfectly nice and congenial people. When I wandered into their camps on an almost daily basis, they would smile, call me
friend, shake my hand, offer me a chair, often treat me to coffee and refried beans, and always fill my half-empty milk jugs with drinking water.
But these nice men are destroying the Sea of Cortez ? and they know it.
I met one pair of men who had landed on the shore and were busy filleting sharks and stingrays on a remote beach. They said that they were from near
Mulege, 30 miles away, but that they could no longer fish near town in the once thriving Bay of Conception.
"There are no more fish there," one of the men said as he seized a little hammerhead shark from his pile of dead ones and began to chop it up. "We
have caught them all."
At the end of the typical day, Baja fishermen will motor their catch back to camp to put into the icebox. There the fish reside for up to a week. For
these long-term arrangements, the fish remain whole, so as to preserve freshness (sharks being an exception; they are immediately cut up and the fins
salted and dried). Eventually, a clunky pickup truck limps over the rise, descends onto the beach, and loads up the week's worth of fish. The heavily
laden truck then returns over the bumpy dirt road (as much as 80 miles) to disperse the fish to the masses of the wider world.
By the time Cortez snapper, mullet, yellowtail, and so forth reach San Francisco markets and restaurants, they are not fresh fish by any means. They
have passed through the hands of many intermediaries too, and prices have climbed. Through recent telephone investigations, I learned that Aqua
Restaurant on California Street offers the fine diner two-and-one-half ounces of not-so-fresh raw yellowtail for $23. And two very little pieces of
yellowfin tuna sashimi at Ebisu on Ninth Avenue can be nibbled for $4.25. And shark-fin soup can be had ... well, perhaps I just won't say. Among the
most endangered and friendless groups of animals on Earth are sharks; must I now recommend where one can eat them?
It is true Baja fishermen no longer just cut off the shark fins and waste all the meat, yet a dead shark is still a dead shark. These animals grow and
reproduce slowly and cannot keep up with the rate of slaughter. The shark fishery of Baja deserves no special attention, by the way. This is a
worldwide problem; 100 million sharks are killed by people each year, and it is inexcusable for anyone claiming to be an environmentalist to eat
shark, ever.
But if one simply must go out now and then to enjoy a meal of delicate seafood, then one can at least thoughtfully choose one's entr?es. Migratory
species such as yellowfin tuna, yellowtail, mahimahi, salmon, and other pelagics are less susceptible to genocide than are reef fish like snapper,
grouper, bass, and rockfish. These latter creatures, like people, make homes for themselves in attractive and comfortable neighborhoods on the bottom
of the sea, but they never take vacations. Humans learn where these year-round residents dwell, then drag nets and lures over them day in and day out.
Humans often allow no time for these fish to grow big, pair up, and have babies, and gradually the rocky submarine reefs of the world are becoming
abandoned ghost towns of the sea.
I have spent 10 months walking through Baja California in the past two years. I enjoy exploring the coastline, snorkeling, rationing my drinking
water, coming across fish camps, and befriending strangers, but the life of a desert vagabond is exhausting; I may not return to Baja for years. But
the Sea of Cortez is a beautiful thing ? a flat, calm desert sea, almost a lake, sort of like the Red Sea of Egypt ? and it's just south of the
border. I'll try to get back before the year 2015.
Skeet/Loreto - 6-10-2005 at 01:50 PM
Excellent Report Sir!
A very good Factual report of the Great Sea of Cortez.
The thing noted is that the Sea around Mulege, Loreto and other small villages have been fished out for at least 25 miles, However there is still good
fishing at 35 to 40 miles and the lessor visited Areas such as south of Loreto.
I do not think the Answer is to stop fishing, but to some how control it in and around the places of Population. When you balance the livehood of the
fisherman with the maket it becomes a very tough Call.
thanks for a good report without Flaming .
Skeet/Loreto
rpleger - 6-10-2005 at 06:36 PM
Right on
Overnite thoughts
Skeet/Loreto - 6-11-2005 at 07:00 AM
Having fished the Sea of cortez for the Past 35 years, living in Loreto for 18 years, I think a good trip to make would be in a Panga or larger vessel
and observe the fish life away as I have for many years.
After the sierra were taken from the Bays, the yellow tail wnet out and deep for food.
How do we know that other Species have not gone into Hiding in other parts of the Sea and will emerge at later times?
How about the the Squid and their returning on odd years?
It will be many many more years than 2015.
Skeet/Loreto