Newport Beach comes to dory’s defense

June Casagrande

As the fate of the city’s dory fishermen continues to teeter on

the fine print of fishing regulations, city leaders are taking up the

battle on the dory fleet’s behalf.

Led by Mayor Tod Ridgeway, the city is sending letters to two

federal agencies imploring them to change the rules just enough to

save the six families who subsist on catching and selling small hauls

of fish in local waters.

“The dory fleet is just too important to the history and the

tourism economy and to locals,” Ridgeway said. “It would be terrible

to lose that.”

After a quick scramble up a steep learning curve on fisheries

management, city leasers have requested that an emergency ban on

catching rockfish be modified to exclude enough of the types of fish

to allow the dory fleets to survive.

On July 1, an emergency ban on catching species categorized as

rockfish in waters 120 feet or deeper along the Pacific Coast went

into effect in response to dramatically depleted stocks of the

rockfish boccacio. On paper, the rule rendered dead the city’s

historic dory fleet, those fishermen whose history dates back to the

late 1800s and who depend on rockfish species such as thorny heads

for their survival.

In response to a sudden outcry from and on behalf of the dory

fleet, federal regulators of the Pacific Fisheries Management Council

and the National Marine Fisheries Service decided to reconsider a

portion of the ban. Thornyheads and sable fish less than 22 inches

should be exempt from the ban, recommended L.B. Boydstun, a member of

the Pacific Fisheries Management Council. While federal regulators

are expected to agree that thornyheads should be exempt, sablefish

could be the sticking point.

“There’s some resistance on the issue of the sablefish,” Boydstun

said. “It’s possible that that one won’t be reversed.”

The city and the dory fleet are hoping that won’t be the case.

“I respectfully request the council’s reconsideration of the

recently-adopted limit on the catch of sablefish which are less than

22’’ in length and caught south of 36nternational N Latitude,” Ridgeway implores

in the letter dated Wednesday to be sent to Donald McIsaac, executive

director of the Pacific Fisheries Management Council, and William

Robinson of the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The city believes that fish stocks in Southern California, where

warm waters mean smaller sablefish, don’t warrant the same harsh

restrictions. City officials are also questioning whether the

emergency ban was legal under fisheries management guidelines.

“If a scientific assessment has not been done of the sablefish

population south of 36nternational N Latitude, we believe that the council’s own

regulations and prudent practice direct such an assessment to be done

prior to the imposition of the 22’’ size limit,” Ridgeway’s letter

noted.

“That may be something that the legal people have to examine,”

Boydstun said.

* JUNE CASAGRANDE covers Newport Beach and John Wayne Airport.

She may be reached at (949) 574-4232 or by e-mail at

june.casagrande@latimes.com.