Controversy About Fishing Nets : Problems Surface After Whale’s Death

He is now known as HBJ-012. He’s 29 feet long and weighs 15 tons. He was a 2-year-old gray whale headed north on his yearly migration from Baja California to Alaska.

HBJ-012 is the specimen number that biologists from the National Marine Fisheries Service assigned to the whale that washed up on shore at the south end of Pescadero Beach in Ocean Beach Thursday morning.

The death of the gray whale, protected under the federal Endangered Species Act, has sparked further controversy in a battle between area conservationists and commercial fishermen.

The whale’s death came after it was entrapped in what officials described as a halibut monofilament gill net--a commercial fisherman’s net that is set at the ocean’s floor to catch halibut. Fishermen leave the nets, often overnight, and return later to haul in their catch. According to authorities, the whale became entangled in the net and drowned.

Carl Nettleton, executive director of the Pacific Region National Coalition for Marine Conservation, said HBJ-012 is the 27th whale to become entangled in gill nets off the coast of Southern California since his organization began keeping statistics in 1980.

Of those 27, 18 have died. Nettleton said a bill before the state Legislature would ban the use of such drift gill nets off the coast of San Diego during the migration months--November, December, March and April.

Representatives of the Western Fish Boat Owners Assn. and the California Gillnetters Assn., prominent commercial fishing organizations, could not be reached for comment on the proposed legislation.

Nettleton said the beached gray whale was the 10th to wash up on Southern

California beaches this year, all victims of fishermen’s nets. In January another gray whale washed up on a San Diego beach, entangled in a sport fisherman’s line.

Nettleton said many whales become entangled in drift gill nets, which are set by means of weights and buoys to drift near the surface of the ocean. Drift gill nets are designed to catch sharks and swordfish, explained Carrie Wilson, a biologist for the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Nettleton said his organization is not opposed to commercial fishing but believes that new laws are needed to protect other species in the ocean.

“Our organization believes in commercial fishing,” Nettleton said. “We’d like to do something to help the fishermen, but they’ve historically been opposed to regulation.”

He charged that commercial fishermen have “overfished” San Diego’s coastal waters. He would like to see a halt to such practices to lessen the chance of incidental catches of whales.

“Overfishing results in incidental catches like this,” he said.

Nettleton also heads the San Diego Oceans Foundation, which he said he hopes bring together all concerned parties to reach a compromise.

“We hope to meet with fishermen and come to a mutually agreeable solution to the problem,” he said. “The netting issue is both complicated and emotional--no one wants to see endangered gray whales killed.”

Since the area where the whale is beached is inaccessible to trucks, authorities were negotiating with the Coast Guard to tow it to a more accessible beach where it will either be buried or carted off for disposal. Other options include cutting the whale into pieces small enough to remove from the small beach area or the use of chemicals to disintegrate the carcass.

“They’re a real bear to get out,” Lt. Rick Savage of the Coast Guard said, adding that Coast Guard officials were trying to determine whether they had a boat powerful enough to move the whale.

“Eighty-two-footers are too small,” he said. “Were going to look at it and mull it over.”