Poaching – Page 4 – Learn to Dive Today Blog

Diving in an MPA

A couple of weekends ago I picked up a hard copy of this brochure (PDF) at the Paddlers shop in Simons Town. It’s the Marine Recreational Activity Information Brochure published by the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. I wish that more poachers would read it! It has information pertaining to the regulations governing scuba divers, anglers, jet skiers, aquarium keepers, rock lobster, and abalone.

The map at left is from this brochure (PDF), which details all the MPAs along our coastline. Certain areas are restricted zones, which means that NO fishing is allowed there at all. I am always totally delighted when the skipper slows the dive boat to a crawl to inform a clueless (or willfully criminal) kayaker or fishing boat that they’re fishing in a no take zone! This usually happens on the way to Smitswinkel Bay in the Castle Rock restricted zone. Research has shown that restricted zones have dramatically positive impacts on fish populations – the difference between fish and marine life populations just inside and just outside these areas is very dramatic.

I can assure you, from diving in these areas, that even though the policing of restricted zones leaves MUCH to be desired, the experience of diving in one is an absolute pleasure for the most part. Rich dive sites like Partridge Point are testimony to this.

Reading the regulations pertaining to the recreational scuba diving permits that we are required to hold when we dive around the Cape Peninsula (and along much of the South African coast) was enlightening. Most of these are common sense, but it was news to me (for example) that no diving is permitted between 11pm and 4am, anywhere in an MPA! It also put paid to any personal chumming activities… What a pity – I would have loved to have had a great white shark all to myself!

By the way, Bird Island – mentioned below – is near Port Elizabeth. There’s a magnificent lighthouse there.

RECREATIONAL SCUBA DIVING PERMIT CONDITIONS

The holder of a recreational SCUBA diving permit shall:

not remove, unduly disturb or harass any marine organism or habitat, including shells or substrate, marine mammals, seabirds and fish.
not feed fish, practice chumming, or dump any material, or discharge any biological attractants in the MPA.
dive in the Table Mountain, Pondoland, Aliwal Shoal and Stilbaai MPA during daylight hours only (from half an hour before local sunrise to the time of local sunset), unless as part of a group being taken out by an DEA-authorised business operator. A representative of a registered Diving Club or individuals must notify the managing authority of the MPA to their satisfaction if they intend night diving. (Table Mountain (SANParks) – 021-786 5656, Pondoland (Eastern Cape Parks) – 047-387 0451/043-742 4450, Aliwal Shoal (Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife – 0825592848). Stilbaai (CapeNature – 028-754 2234).
not scuba dive in the Bird Island MPA at all.
not dive in any MPA where a scuba diving permit is required between 23:00 and 04:00 at all.
abide by the Diver Code of Conduct (www.environment.gov.za).
note that these conditions will be applicable to any new MPAs that may be declared, regazetted or required to have a permit in the future.
adhere to the condition that boats taking persons diving in an MPA where a permit is required shall only launch from an authorized launching site, and shall not launch earlier than an hour before local sunrise or return later than an hour after local sunset unless night diving in compliance with condition 3.

To obtain your MPA permit, take R100 and your identity document or passport to your nearest post office, and ask for a scuba diving permit form at the counter. It’s a blue and white form, the same one as is used for angling, crayfishing, and some other consumptive marine usage activities.

Sea life: Abalone

Also called perlemoen, abalone were among the creatures I was most excited to see when I started diving. As a child, I’d collect their shells on the beach at Betty’s Bay, and admire the mother of pearl interiors. I enjoyed ranking them in order of size, and specially loved the tiny, tiny shells the size of a thumbnail.

Empty abalone shell in Simon's Town Harbour — Empty abalone shell in Simon's Town harbour

The holes running along the edge of abalone shells are for respiration, used to eject water from the gills. Baby abalone are called spats, and abalone only reach reproductive maturity at the age of about seven years. It takes an abalone about 30 years to reach a size of 18 centimetres, and they become more and more prolific breeders as they increase in size. I am always awed to see a large specimen on a dive… Sometimes they’re almost as old as I am.

Walking abalone (with passengers) at Long Beach

When we’ve dived in relatively undisturbed place, such as the North Battery Pipeline and Simon’s Town Harbour, we’ve found huge abalone clustered together. Fisherman’s Beach is also a favoured hide-out. They usually hold fast onto rocky outcrops, but I’ve seen them on the sand at Long Beach, motoring along leaving a wide trail in the sand behind them. They are preyed on by octopus, occasionally, but not much else.

They are herbivores, and eat kelp leaves – trapping them under their shells as they float by. Sometimes it’s a feast for the whole family if a single abalone manages to capture a large frond.

Abalone meat is considered an expensive delicacy in many other parts of the world, and particularly in Asia. The snails have large, fleshy feet which need to be pounded vigorously to tenderise them. I found this guy tipped over on a dive at Long Beach – I thought his foot was beautiful. I took this photo, and then turned him over. I hope he wasn’t sun tanning or something!

Upside down abalone (I turned him back over)

This page on the Department of Environmental Affairs website makes for sobering reading. For the last few years, no permits have been issued for perlemoen harvesting. They used to be managed on the same basis as West coast rock lobsters, but stocks are too low at the moment.

There are over 15 abalone farms in South Africa of which (at least) three abalone farms are in the Hermanus area: Abagold, TerraSan, and HK Abalone Farm. There are also several up the West Coast between Saldanha and St Helena Bay. such as Abulon Holdings. I’m itching to visit one of them, and you can be sure that I’ll update the blog when I do. As you can imagine, it’s a lucrative business, and several companies have sprung up to support the burgeoning mariculture (sea farming – compare the word agriculture, bearing in mind that mares means sea in Latin) business. One of them is Marifeed, which supplies abalone feed to the abalone farming industry.

Sea life: Rock lobster

Many of Tony’s students come to him with extensive skin diving experience. Living in Cape Town, it’s almost obligatory to enjoy at least one lobster braai during the season (and often many more). Sometimes the veteran lobster-divers struggle at first with breathing through a regulator – their instinct while under water is to hold their breath (it’s illegal to take lobster when you’re on scuba). But their comfort in the water (and being used to the cold) stands them in good stead, once Tony’s tapped them on the regulator a few times to remind them to inhale!

We see West Coast rock lobster (not crayfish – those are freshwater creatures) in both False Bay and on the Atlantic side. They are gregarious, and can often be found sheltering in cracks and under overhangs, in quite large groups.

West coast rock lobster on the BOS 400 wreck

It’s a pleasure to do a deep wreck dive such as on the Maori and on the BOS 400, and see hordes of good-sized rock lobster teeming all over the wreck. Some of the shallower sites are definitely over-fished, and we only see really big specimens when we dive beyond the range of your average skin diving lobster hunter. On Gerard’s first deep wreck dive in Smitswinkel Bay, we hadn’t been on the wreck for three minutes when I turned around to see him excitedly waving a MASSIVE lobster at me, the biggest either of us had ever seen. Some finger waggling and head shaking convinced him to replace Mr Lobster in his home, but I think Gerard was heartbroken.

Rock lobster are almost impossible to farm. At the Two Oceans Aquarium on our crash course in marine biology we learned that there are 13 larval stages, during which time the creature drifts hundreds of kilometres offshore through a huge variety of water conditions that it would be impossible to replicate in a mariculture setting. The larval phases can last up to two years. Lobsters grow very, very slowly and can live to the age of 50. There’s some nice detail on the Two Oceans Aquarium website.

They eat crabs, abalone, starfish, snails and sea urchins – this latter fact makes them quite important in the ecosystem as a whole. I’ve mentioned before that juvenile abalone shelter among sea urchins. If there are too many lobsters, they eat too many urchins (and too many abalone) and this leads to a decline in the population of abalone. It’s a fine balance.

Lobsters are incredibly sensitive to the level of oxygen in the water, which sometimes leads to what look like mass walkouts onto the beach when there’s a red tide or similar event leading to (near-)anoxic conditions on our coastline. What actually happens is that they move away from the de-oxygenated water where the red tide has died, and get stranded on the beach by a retreating tide. Once when Tony was landing a dive boat at Miller’s Point, he was waiting for a chance to use the slipway next to a fishing boat that was packed to the gills with lobster. The captain said they’d found a spot where thousands of lobster were strolling together in orderly formation across the ocean floor, and he’d just scooped them up. (He would not share where this magical location was, but the lobster were probably moving to more highly oxygenated waters.) Having substantially exceeded his quota, the fisherman was somewhat twitchy about being pulled over by the authorities!

Poaching of rock lobster is a big problem in South Africa. They’re a very valuable commodity – you just need to go and have a seafood platter at a Camps Bay restaurant to see what damage it can do to your wallet – and easily accessible to anyone who can hold their breath and is prepared to do a bit of rock scrambling. The government Department of Environmental Affairs tries to manage stocks by implementing a closed season, catch and size limits.

Currently, you may only take lobster that measure greater than 8 centimetres from the front of their head to the end of their carapace (NOT to the tip of their tails, as I used to think – fortunately I’m not a lobster fisherman!);
You must have a MPA permit to take lobster (same form at the post office as the scuba diving one);
The season runs from November to April (the dates vary by year);
You may only take lobster during the day – between sunrise and sunset;
You’re not allowed to sell them;
You are not allowed to take females in berry (with eggs), or lobsters with soft shells that have just moulted;
There are also regulations about the number of rock lobster you may transport at once, or have in your possession.

If you’re in doubt as to the utility of this array of regulations, check out the graph in the middle of this page on the Department of Environmental Affairs website. Depressing.

Sea life: Molluscs

Helmet shell on the move at night at Long Beach

I know octopus are molluscs, but by the title of this post I mean things with external shells – abalone, limpets, whelks, mussels and chitons. Couldn’t find a word that covers all of them!

When I was a child, apart from interfering with innocent sea anemones, I enjoyed everything else that the rocky shore had to offer. I collected shells, tried to pull limpets off the rocks, and admired the tracks left in the sand by plough shells on Fish Hoek Beach. As a scuba divers, the temptation is to dismiss all these creatures as not being that interesting – after all, we dive in order to see BIG things, like rays, sharks, fancy fish, and octopus.

The truth is, however, that during my dives I’ve seen a lot of the shells I used to pick up as a child. With a couple of notable differences. One is that these shells are generally inhabited – and their inhabitants are far more brightly coloured and interesting than I ever imagined they would be. The other difference is that, in general, the specimens I see strolling around on the sea bed are bigger than the empty shells I found in rockpools and on the beach. Much bigger (and it’s not just the magnifying effect of the water).

Ribbed turrid on the move at Long Beach - look at that gorgeous foot!

Take abalone (perlemoen) for example. Prized by sexually insecure foreigners, these gastropods are poached almost into oblivion all along the South African coastline. Most of my diving is done in Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) for which I pay for a permit, but this doesn’t make them immune to poaching. It takes years – up to 30 years – for an abalone to grow to its maximum size of about 18 centimetres in diameter. These are incredibly slow-growing creatures. So when I see a massive specimen clinging to a rock at Fisherman’s Beach, or strolling across the sand with the edges of its mantle waving festively at Long Beach, I feel hugely privileged. He’s almost as old as I am!

A week ago I found an abalone at Long Beach that had gotten flipped over, and his (very beautiful) foot was in the air. I took a picture, righted him, and took another picture. Even though he was not very big (about 13 centimetres) his shell was so encrusted that he was clearly quite old.

We also see many whelks of various kinds. These are voracious predators – they will drill holes in other shells using acid, and then inject digestive juices in order to digest their prey while they are still inside their shell. If you find shells with small holes drilled in them, it’s probably one that met an unlucky end at the hands (foot?) of a whelk.

Deadly (or passionate?) embrace at Long Beach

Chitons are protected by a row of eight overlapping plates – if you find a piece of shell that looks like a little boomerang, that’s a piece of chiton. They come in various sizes from the very small (1 centimetre) to the rather impressive. They can’t see a thing – their heads are completely hidden under their plates. They have a very sharp tongue called a radula that they use to scrape algae and other tasty goods off the rocks for food.

Another regular sighting is the allegedly tasty alikreukel – the biggest snail you’ll ever see. As a child I would pick up the little trapdoors they use to seal their shells – one side is usually gorgeous mother of pearl, and the other has little knobbles. These snails are quite active and we often see them moving about.

There’s a lot to see if you slow down and take your time over small areas of the sand, rocks or reef. You’ll often find a handsome mollusc hiding in amongst the seaweed, or making his way across a sandy patch. They’re little miracles in and of themselves – take a look!