BARBARY COAST DIVERS NEWSLETTER

NEWS AND EVENTS

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Next Dive Club Outing:

May 26th through 28th Stillwater Cove Sonoma County, Sonoma County Campground

* BCD Abalone Cookoff! *

Marine Management News

DFG Seeks Members for Advisory Group on Potential Abalone Fisheries

The Department of Fish and Game (DFG) is seeking applicants for an advisory group to help design a potential limited abalone fishery at San Miguel Island. The San Miguel Island Abalone Fishery Advisory Group will assist resource managers in considering a limited abalone fishery, which would be the first in Southern California since 1997. A total of 10 advisory group members will be selected by the Fish and Game Commission and will work on a voluntary basis until July 2007.

The Abalone Recovery and Management Plan (ARMP) adopted by the Fish and Game Commission in December 2005 calls for the state to consider opening limited recreational and commercial abalone fisheries in waters now closed to fishing, beginning with San Miguel Island.

The role of the Abalone Advisory Group will be to provide fishery recommendations to DFG resource managers for consideration and to develop a reasonable range of alternatives that achieve the management goals of the ARMP.

Currently, abalone fishing in California is only legal for sport take in waters north of San Francisco. California has banned all abalone harvest south of San Francisco since 1997.

Applications must be submitted by the final filing date of April 28, 2006. Information on the advisory group's role, the criteria for selection, and how to apply for a position can be found on the Web at www.dfg.ca.gov/mrd/abaloneadvisorygroup.html.

Submit applications to:

Patrick Coulston,
California Dept. of Fish and Game
20 Lower Ragsdale Drive, Suite No. 100
Monterey, CA 93940
831-649-7193
831-649-2894 (fax)
PCoulston@dfg.ca.gov

CA Beach Dive Photo Competition, Monterey — June 10-11

The 25th annual California Beach Dive Photo Comp will take place in Monterey on June 10 & 11, 2006. All contestants must dive from the beach, no boats allowed! There will be separate judging for film and digital entries. All compete for Best of Show. Great prizes, including dive trips, dive and photo gear, and other goodies will be awarded to the winners. The competition starts with registration on Saturday morning. Photographers spend the day shooting images. Images must be turned in at Backscatter Saturday afternoon. Everyone gathers for dinner and a show on Saturday evening. The judges select the winners Sunday and the winners are announced and prizes awarded Sunday afternoon. The entry fee is $60 if postmarked on or before June 2, 2006, $75 thereafter. Registration on Saturday is allowed until 9 a.m. The entry fee includes a T-shirt and a ticket to the dinner/show. Nonparticipants may also enjoy the dinner and show for $5. This event is presented by the Northern California Underwater Photographic Society. Details on their web site at www.ncups.org.

According to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, only naturally occurring islands carry economic exploitation rights.

Warming seas and nibbling fish are eroding the remaining reef faster than ever. So Japanese scientists will begin by harvesting about 300,000 “eggs” of three varieties of coral from Okino-Torishima next month. They will be reared in warm, less turbulent seas off the southwestern island of Okinawa.

Next summer the coral fronds, by then 3cm (1.2in) long, will be planted back on to the reef in Okino-Torishima. “It is hard to say that growing coral will directly result in our holding on to our territory,” Toru Noda, of the Ministry for Land, Infrastructure and Transport, said. “But it should help to preserve the island.” The Tokyo Government has already installed a large sign bearing the official address of the island.

Last year Shintaro Ishihara, the nationalist Governor of the city, was photographed kissing its dwindling earth. The problem is Article 121 of Part VIII of the UN Convention: “Rocks which cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of their own shall have no exclusive economic zone or continental shelf.” Even Mr Ishihara would balk at living on Okino-Torishima, although there is talk of setting up an electricity plant to establish “economic life”.

Japan has disputes over islands with each of its near neighbours. To the north it claims the Kurile Islands, seized by the Soviet Union after Japan’s surrender in 1945. To the west Japan and South Korea claim tiny islands known as Tokto and Takeshima. The most serious disputes are with China, especially over five islets controlled by Japan as the Senkaku islands, but claimed by China and Taiwan as Diaoyutai. Their ownership is crucial to a dispute over rights to natural gas resources beneath the East China Sea.

Gator attacks man diving in Boynton lake diving for golf balls

A man diving for golf balls inside a lake at a city-owned golf course was attacked by a nine-foot alligator this afternoon and suffered several puncture wounds to his lower arm.

Stephen Martinez, 43, of Coral Springs, was taken to JFK Medical Center in Atlantis for treatment of injuries similar to a dog bite, said Palm Beach County sheriff's Lt. Rolando Silva.

"It's serious, but certainly not life-threatening," he said.

Martinez was under the murky water near the ninth hole at the Links at Boynton Beach, 8020 Jog Rd., when a group of golfers heard him moan in pain and cry for help, said course manager Don Hager.

The golfers pulled Martinez out of the water, and he told them that a large gator bit his air tank on his back and tried to pull him underwater.

Martinez grabbed a utility knife strapped to his dive suit and tried to stab the gator when the reptile clamped its jaws onto Martinez's arm before fleeing, Hager said.

"He was in good spirits, but he was shaking," Hager added.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is investigating, calling the bite the 17th confirmed alligator attack in Palm Beach County since the state began keeping track in 1948, said agency commission Dani Moschella.

New Fish Fossil Called Evolutionary Link

PHILADELPHIA -- A fossil that has a connection to Philadelphia is being called a missing link in the evolutionary chain, television station WCAU reported. Scientists from the Academy of Natural Sciences helped make the discovery of a fish with fingers that could poke its head out of shallow water.

Paleontologists from around the world teamed up for the search. They traveled all the way to northern Canada and into the Arctic Circle, digging for fossils that might better explain evolution theories.

"This is absolutely a link in the chain," said Dr. Ted Daeschler, from the Academy of Natural Sciences.

The paleontologists dug up a 375-million-year-old fossil of a large fish that was once found in shallow, fresh water. They named the new species Tiktaalik roseae.

"This animal shows us that, slowly but surely, through the evolutionary process, animals that were actually first living in shallow water were fish, but were built for contacting the ground -- using fins to travel in land environments," Daeschler said.

The forward fins of the fossil show that the fish had bones suggesting fingers, elbows and a shoulder-like structure. Scientists used geology to know where to dig under millions of years of rock.

There is no living animal on Earth that links the ancient fish to land species, but Daeschler does have a pet named Henry that is an amphibian tetropod from Mexico. Henry swims around Daeschler's office at the Academy of Natural Sciences. Henry stays in water now, but at one point during his evolution he could have used his arms and legs for land. Henry's only connection to the new fossil is the idea that animals adapt over time.

Canadian Fisheries officials are reviewing rules governing the annual East Coast seal hunt after one of the most turbulent seasons in decades.

Clashes between sealers and hunt protesters in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador highlighted growing tensions between the people who want to stop the slaughter of young seals and those who rely on it as a much-needed source of income.

High-profile appeals by celebrities, including a widely covered visit to the Gulf by ex-Beatle Paul McCartney and the re-emergence of actress Brigitte Bardot, signalled a massive new effort by animal rights groups to stop the seal hunt once and for all.

Out on the ice, the presence of protesters was beyond toleration for some sealers who resorted to flinging seal guts at observers and, in several cases, attempting to ram the small, inflatable vessels used by protesters and news reporters.

With the threat of boycotts growing and with more countries considering bans on seal products, officials with the Canadian Fisheries Department are reviewing their options to protect the hunt.

At the very least, they say there could be new restrictions placed on hunt observers.

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