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White Seabass Information
The white seabass is a fish that has been much
sought after commercially and by anglers. Its flesh is white and tender and highly valued, making it a
prime target for fishermen. Despite their name, the white seabass belongs to the croaker
family. They occur from Magdalena Bay, Baja California, to Juneau, Alaska and prefer
traveling in schools over rocky bottoms and around kelp beds. The average weight of a legal
length (28 inches) fish is 7.5 pounds. The body of a white seabass is elongate and somewhat
compressed. Its coloring is bluish to grey above, with dark speckling and silver underneath.
White Seabass Decline
Between 1950 and 1980 the annual sport catch of white
seabass declined dramatically - from an annual catch of 55,000 fish to fewer than 3,500. Once an important game
fish and commercial food fish, white seabass virtually disappeared from California. Most of the shallow lagoons
and estuaries where the white seabass spend their early lives have been built over or filled in. Surveys show
the loss of habitat (specifically the loss of wetlands that are important nursery habitats for the fish), along
with heavy commercial fishing, and the development of gill nets have depleted the white seabass
populations to 10% of what they were only 50 years ago along the Southern California coast.
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Gill Nets
The development and proliferation
of gillnets not only depleted the white seabass populations, but they also changed entire ocean ecosystems
in the 1980s. These nets were draped through kelp beds and left overnight - wiping entire schools of fish as
well as many other marine animals, including dolphins, sharks, and sealions (shown here). In 1960 there was over
3.5 million pounds of commercial take of white seabass. By 1982 that number dwindled to fewer than 100,000 pounds.
Even though research showed gill nets were significantly altering fish populations, they were not banned until 1990. Now
gill netting is illegal in Californian waters out to three miles offshore. However, gill netting is still legal in
Mexican waters.
This photograph of the trapped sealions was taken in November 2003 by world-reknown photographer Marty
Snyderman at the Coronado Islands. |
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