Pacific Fishing
October 2006

San Diego Urchin Divers Organize

By John Stumbos

San Diego-area sea urchin divers are forming a group they hope will give them the tools to manage their nearshore fishery locally.

"California doesn't have a management plan for sea urchins, vet the state's Marine Lite Management Act requires that every fishery have one," says Pete Halmay, one of the fishermen organizing the San Diego Watermen's Association.

"We're only in the beginning stages of getting the guys together, but what we're trying to accomplish is local governance and devolved management."

Lights' percent of the sea urchins landed in Southern California are harvested on offshore islands. The remainder is harvested along the coast near the ports of San Diego, San Pedro, Ventura, and Santa Barbara. San Diego-based sea urchin divers harvest roughly 7 percent of the sea urchin take - about 11 million pounds statewide in 2005.

Some of the San Diego divers are becoming "barefoot ecologists," according to Halma. Trained by scientists from the University of Washington and U.C. Santa Barbara, they are learning how to collect and record site-specific baseline information, such as size of harvested animals, density of catch, pounds harvested, and yield and quality.

The group is modeled after successful sea urchin cooperatives in Japan and Mexico and "caletas" in Chile. The group envisions eventually marketing the product as a sustainable local fishery, something that has caught the attention and support of environmental organizations like the Alex Walker Foundation, the Sand County Foundation, Environmental Defense, Commonweal, and The Nature Conservancy.

"We've got to do more than sell a commodity," Halmay says. "We see this as an opportunity to practice conservation while we develop a viable and profitable fishery."

Pete Halmay can be reached at (610) 957-7121. Or email him at phalmay@earthlink.net.