The situation as of 2/23/00, is that the Director of Fish and Game has indeed lifted an existing ban on importing into northern California abalone infected with the bacteria that causes Withering Syndrome. Withering Syndrome wiped out 99% of southern California's black abalone and is a prime suspect in some recent dramatic drops in red abalone populations at San Miguel Island. Bummer, no?

The ban was lifted based on a recommendation that emerged from two separate meetings: a scientific panel discussion and a subsequent meeting of CDFG's Aquaculture Disease Committee. Part of the same recommendation to emerge from both meetings included the caveat that a monitoring program be implemented to detect whether the infected aquaculture facility is contributing to the spread of the causative bacteria. This is where things get sticky.

The question is: what does an effective monitoring program look like and how much of it has to be in place before the ban SHOULD be lifted? (remember, it currently IS lifted) As of right now, CDFG hasn't decided/doesn't know. It is possible that the Director will soon reimpose the ban until there's a formalized understanding of what the monitoring program will look like and where the funding for that program will come from. Neither issue is trivial.

What the monitoring program will look like is not nailed down because the technology doesn't currently exist =:^O The most promising candidate is to filter water at various locations along the north coast. The material collected from the filtering is then subjected to DNA screening to determine if the culprit bacteria is present in the water column. Detection of the RLP bacteria in this manner has been proven in the lab but there needs to be some additional research to determine if it's sensitive enough for the monitoring purposes being considered. Let's keep our fingers crossed here because I haven't heard of any other promising monitoring method.

Then there's the question of funding. As in, how much money is needed and where's it coming from? Neither of those questions have been nailed down. I've heard rough guesses on how much and it's right at 6 figures. Annually!!!! They're still working to locate funding sources (hopefully, they're not looking at the Recreational Stamp funds but ...).

Aside from these two prickly issues, there's the question of how much of a monitoring program has to actually be in place before infected abalone can be imported into northern California. Right now and for the time being, none of the monitoring program has to be in place. That is expected to change PDQ but to what? At one end of the spectrum (CDFG Aquaculture Disease Committee???), a gentlemen's agreement that a monitoring program will somehow be put into place someday is sufficient to lift the ban. At the other end of that spectrum, there are some (me, for example) who believe an effective monitoring program includes proven technology installed with baseline information already collected and a source of funding for the next few years (at least). Recognizing that nobody can speak for the Director but the Director, my impression is that the monitoring program will be considered sufficient if there's a high level commitment to providing the funding to put it into place. Hopefully, that also includes an immediate start to the water filtering (water can be filtered now to collect material that is tested AFTER the DNA screening method has been fully verified and characterized).

Sooo... that's where things stand today. Ask next week and who knows.

Last Modified on February 23, 2000
norcadiver@sonic.net