chuckie
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More on Fisheries
Scallops? What happened?Here in Mulege, for many years we had a thriving scallop industry. You could see boats coming in with them, along the river
road ,see them being processed. Piles of shells along the South end of the bay and fish camps existed...I started thinking about this as a result of a
conversation I had with a Louisiana waterman yesterday. Some things sneak up on us I guess, It dawned on me that the industry was gone. What happened?
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bill erhardt
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I don't know what happened in Concepcion Bay, but the fishery is going strong in Bahia Magdelena. In a couple of months every panga in Lopez Mateos
will be in the estero daily returning every night loaded to the gunwales with the small bay scallops. They can be had all over town cleaned and fresh
for $8 U.S. per kilo, or so (up from $4 or $5 a few years ago). They freeze fine. A trip across the hill from Loreto or Mulege to load up is well
worth while.
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chuckie
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We can get lots from local fishermen, but as an industry such as you describe, its over....unless I am just not seeing it...
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Russ
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Just another example of the fine job our fisheries management of the Bahia Concepcion has done. Damn them!
Bahia Concepcion where life starts...given a chance!
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beachbum1A
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It's gone in Laguna Manuela too! Empty buildings with rusting refrigeration units (or what's left of them) on the roofs along with piles & piles
of scallop shells left drying in the sun. Once a thriving fishery, now they're long lining for sharks.
Just do it!
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Aqsurfer
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Shark populations have already dropped dramatically. Those longliners are on the prowl for dorado and bill fish. Check this youtube video on the
problem. I am currently working with Vince Radice and Minerva Saenz on stopping this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZstAPZqDYmQ
This problem continues to grow each year.
Peace,
Aaron
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chuckie
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I hate longlines...while hunting dorado a month ago I almost ran over one outside of Santa Ines Island....saw it in time to get stopped...are they
legal?
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KurtG
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| Quote: | Originally posted by chuckie
Scallops? What happened?Here in Mulege, for many years we had a thriving scallop industry. You could see boats coming in with them, along the river
road ,see them being processed. Piles of shells along the South end of the bay and fish camps existed...I started thinking about this as a result of a
conversation I had with a Louisiana waterman yesterday. Some things sneak up on us I guess, It dawned on me that the industry was gone. What happened?
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The harvest of bay scallops seemed to peak in the late 80's and early 90's. The camps at the south end of the bay were huge and were made up of
people mostly from the mainland. Guys were the divers and panga operators and women and kids cleaned and iced the scallops. The navy was out in
force to keep order in the camps. It was quite a scene, hundreds of people in the camps. My simple answer to what happened is that they simply
cleaned out the bay scallops to below a level that could sustain any further large scale harvest.
In recent years the scallops I have had in Mulege are the much larger callos de hacha, not the smaller bay scallops.
Many of the dive compressors used back in the 80's looked like converted refrigerator compressors, pretty funky and I wondered about the long term
health effects on the divers.
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Aqsurfer
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Hola Chuckie,
Legality of shark longline fishers is based on boat length/displacement NORMA 029. Big boats are tecnically not legal in the gulf due to the 50-mile
from the coast exclusion zone. Small scale fishers (riberenos) in pangas are. Problem with these little guys are that they are often working under a
"cloned" permit or for a phantom cooperative. They are not required to log/report catch. Thousands of pangas taking tons of fish and no accounting
for fisheries management purposes.
Whistler. God to hear from you and thanks again for your help with Abreojos lifeguard program. You absolutely right. The nearshore rock/reef
fishery is in big trouble. The pangas hammered away with short trunk lines and gill nets. When this reduced fish numbers, they turned hooka divers
herding fish in to gill nets or pistoleros picking the reefs clean. Anytime you see a big shift in commercial fishing effort that signals big
trouble.
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bajabuddha
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I've camped the Bahia Concepcion since the middle nineties, and the shell middens surrounding the shorelines were old and sunbleached even then. The
way i heard the story was in the '60s the Japanese did a little palm-greasing with the Mexican Gov't and came in with processing boats and dragged the
entire bay STERILE. They either took a couple of years to do it, or came back and did it twice, depending on who's version you hear.
The bay was named for its' abundancy of life and procreation beforehand, and the ships worked every inch of it denuding it of almost everything that
moved (or didin't move)that was harvestable. Man-camps of locals set up tarpaulin shade shelters to work, and traveled around the bay as the boats
worked. You can find literally thousands of middens of shells with literally thousands of shells per midden; the middens accessable closer to the
highway have been hauled into Mulege to landscape yards and driveways, but a little bumping up the peninsula will show you HUGE piles, one after
another, all the way to the northern tip. The quantities are staggering.
Like Easter Island, that used to be a lush tropical 'paradise' island, it got over-populated and denuded of all forestry, and never recovered even
after 400 years or more. Unfortunately, the bay is the same. There is a 'no commercial fishing' moratorium on the bay, but is still heavily fished
by locals trying to survive. Two years ago even the Callos de Acha and Ancha fishing (that is regulated and licensed for harvest) was over-fished and
stripped too heavily due to a better-than-average crop of scallops, and the entire bay was closed for the whole year/season, and locals were paid by
the Gov't to be 'vigilancias' and watch for any poaching, being a reward for turning in any.
It truly is (to me) the most beautiful place in Baja, and there's a few triggers to catch and the usual takes of bass, etc. In the spring the
Roosters run, and a friend latched a 50 lb. Dog Snapper a few years back... that used to be a normal occurance until the Big Drag. Stories abounded
about them around Pta. Armenta. Now it's a rareity. I was fortunate to know an old colorful local that ran Playa La Perla, long gone now, but his
stories still remain with me. I miss him, and it. My heart will always reside there.
I don't have a BUCKET LIST, but I do have a F***- IT LIST a mile long!
86 - 45*
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David K
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There are piles of shell 'middens' all around Baja... and they are from the Indians (or 'native people' if you prefer) from the past 10,000 years or
so... Not all are from overfishing the past few years.
Page 123 from Mike McMahan's 'There It Is: Baja!' c1973 and the top photo was also used 20 years earlier on page 143 of 'Baja California' c1953.
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KurtG
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| Quote: | Originally posted by bajabuddha
I've camped the Bahia Concepcion since the middle nineties, and the shell middens surrounding the shorelines were old and sunbleached even then. The
way i heard the story was in the '60s the Japanese did a little palm-greasing with the Mexican Gov't and came in with processing boats and dragged the
entire bay STERILE. They either took a couple of years to do it, or came back and did it twice, depending on who's version you hear.
The bay was named for its' abundancy of life and procreation beforehand, and the ships worked every inch of it denuding it of almost everything that
moved (or didin't move)that was harvestable. Man-camps of locals set up tarpaulin shade shelters to work, and traveled around the bay as the boats
worked. You can find literally thousands of middens of shells with literally thousands of shells per midden; the middens accessable closer to the
highway have been hauled into Mulege to landscape yards and driveways, but a little bumping up the peninsula will show you HUGE piles, one after
another, all the way to the northern tip. The quantities are staggering.
Like Easter Island, that used to be a lush tropical 'paradise' island, it got over-populated and denuded of all forestry, and never recovered even
after 400 years or more. Unfortunately, the bay is the same. There is a 'no commercial fishing' moratorium on the bay, but is still heavily fished
by locals trying to survive. Two years ago even the Callos de Acha and Ancha fishing (that is regulated and licensed for harvest) was over-fished and
stripped too heavily due to a better-than-average crop of scallops, and the entire bay was closed for the whole year/season, and locals were paid by
the Gov't to be 'vigilancias' and watch for any poaching, being a reward for turning in any.
It truly is (to me) the most beautiful place in Baja, and there's a few triggers to catch and the usual takes of bass, etc. In the spring the
Roosters run, and a friend latched a 50 lb. Dog Snapper a few years back... that used to be a normal occurance until the Big Drag. Stories abounded
about them around Pta. Armenta. Now it's a rareity. I was fortunate to know an old colorful local that ran Playa La Perla, long gone now, but his
stories still remain with me. I miss him, and it. My heart will always reside there. |
I don't know about dragging for the bay scallops but in the 80's the operation was as I described it above. Pangas and hooka divers in huge numbers.
I visited those camps and in around '85 or 6 while staying at the Hacienda one of the Mexican guys who was involved in the operation brought an ice
chest full of scallops to the hotel every night. We had scallops every way that Sra. Cuesta could fix them. As to drag boats, that very south end of
the bay where the scallops were harvested is very shallow. Don't know that a dragger could operate there. You are absolutely correct about the
tragedy of overfishing. If Pompano is around I suspect he could document it as well as anybody. I lived in Mulege in 1974-75 and while I am not much
of a fisherman the abundance was there for anyone to see. One example, in 1975 my then 3 year old daughter could fill a bucket with steamer clams at
Santispac in about 15 minutes. Wonderful times.
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mtgoat666
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the scallops that squirt/swim above seabed are usually fished by dragger. the callos de hacha and other stationary varieties are scallop family and
not fished by dragger.
the over-fishing of bays and lagoons in many places removed almost entire original bivalve population, and the bivalves that recovered are in entirely
different proportions to original population.
over fishing of bays and lagoons was a crime against nature,... will never recover in our life times.
anywho, now that over fishing is done and continuing "sustainable" fishing will effectively prevent populations from ever recovering,... the next
enviro disaster will be resort builders completing their quest to exterminate mangroves,... followed by global warming and sea level change ,...
followed by who knows what next
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chuckie
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Not to worry, the Government will provide a new environment and cool the water off..Thats what they are there for...
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KurtG
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I just checked some old photos and trip notes and the last year that I saw the harvest as I described it above was 1993. Two friends and I
motorcycled around the bay and bought some scallops at one of the camps. I'm pretty certain, but not absolutely, that it was in early June.
[Edited on 9-24-2013 by KurtG]
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