Comment on Giant sea bass appear to be rebounding off West Coast

Giant sea bass appear to be rebounding off West Coast

AVALON, Calif. — As the sun rose over this harbor town on Santa Catalina Island, four scuba divers with cameras and notepads finned toward canopies of undulating kelp. The seaweed off Santa Catalina Island was teeming with small fish that flashed kaleidoscopically vivid colors. The small fish attracted larger fish – opaleye, kelp bass, sheepshead and bright orange garibaldi, the California state marine fish. But they were of little interest to the divers from the University of California, Santa Barbara and the Aquarium of the Pacific, who descended in search of something much bigger. Their mission: to confirm reports of unusually large numbers of giant sea bass gathering at Avalon’s Casino Dive Park, one of the most popular scuba diving sites in California. It’s part of an effort by scientists to understand and encourage the remarkable but still fragile comeback for one of the biggest fish of all, which all but disappeared from the Southern California coast due to overfishing. Giant sea bass can live at least 70 years, grow to 7 feet in length and weigh up to 560 pounds.

 

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