Starving Abalone? Another Closure?

Save the kelp forests! We should be planting kelp and indroducing it to areas of favorable habitat. Maybe British Columbia has some wolf kelp they can introduce to balance nature? Gotta save those abalone! Maybe we can get BigJim tovdoca sally struthers commercial, good lord knows with just the price of a cup of coffee, you too can feed an abalone! Attach sponsor tags, and you will receive GoPro footage of your sponsored abalone. Every snail deserves to leave a trail.

This is why our forum needs a "Like" button.👍

Going tomorrow a different spot have not been there in years sense the die off so this should be fun. I am more into the spearfishing but I will check the abalone out and the kelp see how it looks in a different area. Water looks good and its a minus tide too don't get any better than that.

Went to the same spot I went to in May yesterday for abs.

There were a lot of good abs big and small, uni and thick patches of strong healthy bull kelp 

The abs weren't that meaty but they weren't starving either.

It looks promising.


BTW nice one Rich.....long pass due 

It may not necessarily be starving, it could be due to Withering Abalone Syndrome

I have seen them move pretty fast when they want to.  There are pockets of bull kelp all the way up the Mendo coast.  Not sure about other locations. 

Well we went and it was a little better not by a lot but better. No bull kelp to speak of none just stalks. We talked to some other divers who said the same about the small amounts of meat in some abalone but not all them. It would be nice to see kelp like DG photo posted in Sonoma waters.

I recently became interested in the relationship between uni and kelp and came upon this article.  Uni are delicious, just not the purple ones 

http://www.dailybreeze.com/environment-and-nature/20140813/divers-hammer-thousands-of-urchins-to-save-palos-verdes-peninsula-kelp-forests

I was a nay sayer until last weekend. I thought it impossible for a healthier dense abalones meat to be able to wither into nothing so quick without kelp.

Last weekend I pulled a 10" and one right under. The 10" was completely normal with good meat. The one a hair under 10 was pathetic. About the size of a barely legal ab I needed up scrubbing it and freezing it to cool it whole since abs that small are not worth cleaning IMO

Every one should read this article link that is in "bobbyang1" message then even scarier is read the comments below.... the BS about introducing Otters to help OMG I can see it now environmentalist and biologist salivating right now OH BOY lets shut down the Sonoma coast and introduce Sea Otters. I don't know what I am more afraid of environmentalist and biologist or a decimated coastline. You can bet that if us sports divers are seeing this kelp,urchin and abalone population change you KNOW the environmentalist and biologist are too and who knows whats going threw there heads, conjuring up god knows what.

Surest way to screw it up is to let man try and fix it by playing god.

Surest way to screw it up is to let man try and fix it by playing god.

Eh its all relative I suppose, when man messes up the naturally self regulating system its seems an intervention is in order. Knowing human nature, we generally thoroughly enjoy depleting resources and thinking "short term", rather than long. Usually biologists have the best intentions

After an El nino year the kelp will be sparse. Its quite thick in Monterey ATM

You guys are right no matter how hard we try good or bad mother nature will have the last say in all this.
If I can I would love to go check Fisk Mill Cove out sometime this year that cove has been closed for what 5 or 6 years now so no ab diving,spearfishing or sport fishing has not been done. We dove there the year before they closed it and it was an extremely healthy area loaded with marine life.   

What is most interesting about the article is there is no follow up I can find anywhere...  So I guess it didn't work out???

I think best thing is to clean up oceans from trash and pollution.  That's the biggest help.

Every one should read this article link that is in "bobbyang1" message then even scarier is read the comments below.... the BS about introducing Otters to help OMG I can see it now environmentalist and biologist salivating right now OH BOY lets shut down the Sonoma coast and introduce Sea Otters. I don't know what I am more afraid of environmentalist and biologist or a decimated coastline. You can bet that if us sports divers are seeing this kelp,urchin and abalone population change you KNOW the environmentalist and biologist are too and who knows whats going threw there heads, conjuring up god knows what.

OK well here is another good read and from the Press Democrat and apparently fish and game are aware of this change in the ecosystem. They closed the crab season so I sure hope were not the next and rockfishing too. Watch out this article was just written so give them time it will be on next years agenda for sure.
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/5487602-181/collapse-of-kelp-forest-imperils?artslide=4

Wow,  that is a scary article.  I did see probably 7-8 empty ab shells over 2 hours of diving at timber cove.  Not sure if that is typical or not.   I did see a ton of purple urchins.   I always thought there were just naturally more of them.   Didn't know it was potentially a problem to other species.