Giant Sea Bass Are Making a Comeback at Catalina
Giant sea bass can reach 560 pounds and live 75 years. Fished nearly to extinction, they’re slowly returning to Southern California, especially Catalina. Here’s how, and why scientists say it’s too early to celebrate.
Updated
If you’ve dived off Casino Point at Catalina, you may have had the experience of a shadow the size of a small car sliding out of the kelp next to you. That’s a giant sea bass, Stereolepis gigas, one of the biggest fish on the California coast. They can grow to about 7.5 feet and 560 pounds and live 75 years. They were once common around Southern California, especially Catalina, until we nearly fished them out. Now they’re slowly coming back.
Giant Sea Bass weighing over 400 pounds caught at Catalina in 1906
In the early 1900s, giant sea bass were a trophy for sport fishermen and a target for commercial boats. Big, slow and curious, they were easy to catch. By the 1970s, they were rarely seen at all.
In 1981, California banned fishing for them, and in 1994, voters banned gill nets in nearshore waters, which had been killing giant sea bass as bycatch. That second ban may have mattered most.
If you are a diver, Catalina Island is a hotspot to see Giant Sea Bass. (Erik Olsen)
Giant sea bass have been listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and genetic studies suggest the breeding population may be only about 500 fish. Since the bans, scientists have been tracking their numbers around Catalina, much of it from the Wrigley Marine Science Center (WMSC), the USC Wrigley Institute’s lab on the island, using dive surveys and underwater robots.
The news is good. Sightings have been climbing for years, and divers are spotting juveniles, a sign the fish are breeding successfully.
Aquariums are helping too. Cal State Northridge, the Aquarium of the Pacific and Cabrillo Marine Aquarium teamed up to raise baby giant sea bass from eggs, and in March 2020, they released about 200 of them into Santa Monica Bay.
University of California Santa Barbara
Catalina is the heart of the comeback. Its kelp forests and rocky reefs are ideal habitat, and the water is cleaner than along the mainland. The island also has marine protected areas, and groups like the Catalina Island Conservancy have made conservation part of the island’s identity.
Divers help too, sending in photos so scientists can identify individual fish by their spot patterns, which are as unique as fingerprints. I’ve seen several of them while diving, and every time I just hang there gaping as they hover like zeppelins in the kelp at Casino Point.
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Researchers say it’s too early to celebrate. Even with the increase, the population is only about 20 percent of what’s needed for long-term survival. Giant sea bass take 11 to 13 years to mature, so recovery is slow, and scientists want the fishing ban kept in place for another 20 to 30 years. A few boats could undo decades of progress.
They also face pollution, habitat loss and a warming ocean.
The Giant Sea Bass at the California Academy of Sciences.
Still, conservationists see it as proof that protection works: stop killing a long-lived fish, give it time and it can come back.
If you dive at Catalina, keep an eye on the edge of the kelp. With a little luck, a 300-pound fish that may be older than you are will drift over to take a look.
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