Loves Local Winter Diving
Hi Kim & Dale,
Attached find a snapshot of the results of a fine day of diving in Santa Monica Bay last Saturday; a 21# flattie and limits of lobster—largest bug about 5 pounds. Visibility throughout the bay ranged from 20 to 30 foot. When we hit the water for the first dive, the air temp was a cool 47 degrees. Water temp at 100 feet was a “balmy” 55 degrees.

I love local (winter) diving.

Best regards,
Patrick Smith

Digital Altering Taken Too Far
Regarding Len Tillim article in January issue:
While some professional photographers admit they clean up backscattered photos on the computer, in no way must you insert or arrange a subject in a particular image and palm it off as genuine. Artistic ethics aside, we who photograph marine life are documentarians. To show an animal performing a behavior it would not ordinarily do or populating a spare piece of water with life that would not be there makes fools of us all. Do it for fun, but don’t make your photos look like something out of Forrest Gump.

Peter Hemming
via e-mail

More Commentary on Proposed Marine Reserves
To California Diving News:
In the February edition, you had a letter from Sam Macaluso concerning the proposed Marine Life Reserves that are required by the Marine Life Protection Act (AB993, Shelley, 1999). He decried the “ignorance being promoted...” but proceeded to lay out wild disinformation. A good info source is just http://www.dfg.ca.gov/mrd/mlpa/.

The proposed reserves were never intended to be off limits to the public. Most divers, who only want to look at and photograph fish will benefit, while anglers and spearfishers will have to wait for the reserves to start producing abundance that will spill out the edges for them.

The California Sport Fishermen’s Association is fond of mentioning that their legions spend $2.5 billion/year, (counting fresh water, too) which explains why lobbyists are working in Sacramento to carry their message. The message is that because of the economics involved, the reserves should be as small as possible and not in prime fishing areas. Well, why do these out- of-touch scientists and kelp-hugging radicals not agree?

The initial study was to propose the most effective ways to enact the Marine Protection Act, so oceanographers pointed to the most diverse habitats and areas large enough to provide complete environments, so replenishment could be made by larger individuals of any species, which is nature’s way to ensure hardy stocks. That happened to cover some good fishing grounds. “Not in my backyard” is the reply.

Anglers also say that fishing is good now, and Fish and Game can manage stocks by restricting catches, so there is no emergency. But only game fish are well monitored, by recording ‘yields’ of individual species. Now commercial abalone fishermen knew abalone were suffering, but they didn’t ask Fish and Game for regulations, and divers and poachers didn’t report in either, so DFG was caught by surprise when Withering Foot caused abalone to collapse. This is why I will not get to take a wild abalone in my lifetime, and why single species management by crisis will not produce a diverse habitat, but a government subsidized fish farm for the satisfaction of specific commercial special interests.

Sam did us a favor to write though, because there will be reserves and the impact of them is being decided with very little input from divers.

John Leek
via e-mail

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