Because of malicious action taken against me by a forum member, for voicing my opinions, I have deleted most of my entries on this thread.

Is there a permit where I can collect fish locally?

what if your under 16? still need license?

I was hoping to collect some purple shore crabs or striped shore crabs from the jetties out in Redondo Beach. I don't see a map for that region on the website and your resources would indicate collecting crabs from the shore would be legal. Granted I'll still take these sources with me if confronted too.

^Would any animals collected around that area or OC beaches live well in a reef tank?

No, it would need to be a cold water tank.

C-Rad, you need to STOP GIVING OUT BAD INFO on this one.

You're going to get someone put in jail, and they're going to be extremely pissed off at you. Have you emailed the department of fish and game on this, or are you just pulling out bull**** directly from your ass? Tell you what, you email the DFG at CalOutdoors@dfg.ca.gov and post their reply back to you on here since you're just not getting it. That way we can all watch you eat some humble pie on your bad advice before people start taking action on it. Also, that way you can stop illegally telling people that it's ok to break the law.

I have friends in the DFG, friends that work with Scientific Collection Permits to collect animals for research at their state aquariums, and know at least one diver with a Marine Aquaria receiver's license, which I feel are much better sources than "**** I just made up."

The reality of the law is this:

"Marine Aquaria Collector $375.00 Required for any person taking, possessing aboard a boat, or landing any live native marine species specified in FGC 8597 from California waters for marine aquaria pet trade purposes. At least one person aboard each commercial fishing vessel shall have a valid marine aquaria collector permit."

All collections must be logged with the DFG, and if you sell or trade a single one of those while in possession of the MAC license you're breaking the law without a Marine Aquaria Receiver's License ($1,626.75).

It is 100% illegal to transport ANY live fish or invertebrates in california unless they are considered bait or unless they are california spiny lobster and in season. The fines for breaking these laws are HUGE, and between those and lawyer fees you will be out at least nearly $10-50,000 for taking C-Rad's awful advice.

Their reply back to you will look exactly like this, but I want to see the one with your name on it to make sure that you actually get it this time. After they email you EDIT YOUR ORIGINAL POST in this thread with the correct info so people reading it don't have to scroll all the way down to this reply to figure out that you have no idea what you're talking about.

I agree with organism. You shouldn't be giving out BS like this. Obviously you have been spoken to before about these inappropriate posts. I'm trying to figure out why you would keep crying about this. please stop.

droppin bombs!

Pwned....

I tend to feel a little jealous living in Michigan and I read about people collecting all this cool stuff from local waters for their tanks... Of course the laws & regulations vary, but it seems that sometimes it's illegal, so it makes me feel a little better about paying my hard earned $$$ for livestock :-) My attitude probably isn't the best, but it is what it is.

For real!

C-Rad, man up and edit your first post when DFG emails you back so that people can actually know the facts. DON'T delete the thread to save face because then we're back at square one with the next person that has no idea on this one, and that'll save me the trouble of having to repost the same thread with screenshots I've taken of this one to get the same point across.

It is not legal to take LIVE fish away from the ocean, so it is not legal to catch fish (under a sportfishing license) and put them in your tank. (There's a really good reason for this, see below) The short description of the pertanent California laws that I gave in the opening post of this thread refer to the laws that govern collection with a Sportfishing License, which is by far the easiest of the three authorized ways to collect. Anybody can buy a fishing license, but the other two types of permits, which do allow you to collect fish (I think) are much harder to qualify for. They are a scientific/educational collection permit, and a commercial collection for sale to the pet trade permit. You can read about those online at http://www.dfg.ca.gov. They are impossible for most people to get, but you might be able to.

The reason that you can't take live fish home is so that you can't release them into the wild after they've been in your tank. The fear is that people will put fish in their (typically warm water) tank, where they might catch some non-native disease or parasite. Then, when they see that the fish isn't doing well, or needs to break down the tank, they release the fish back into the ocean, where it could infect the wild population. That would be a disaster, so no fish. They would make the same rule for inverts if they could, but most shellfish must be cooked live because if spoils so fast, so they can't make you kill your lobsters at the beach.

***Morality Lecture Warning!!***
Because of the devastation that a non-native disease or parisite can cause to wild populations, I think that we all need to have a strict "one-way-trip" policy for any animal we collect. We need to be willing to literally kill any animal we put in our tank, when the time comes, and to resist the temptation, no matter how heart wrenching, to release an animal instead of killing it. IMO it is for this reason that Keeping Native Biotopes is not for the soft-hearted. And don't assume that you'll be able to find someone who is willing/able to keep your animals. Even if you do, how can you be sure they won't go soft when it's time to kill all the animals they've been caring for? I think our moto must be "If you catch it, you've killed it". There's no going home for our animals. The only alternative is to risk devastating a whole species, or even a whole ecosystem. (Luckily, marine inverts are not nearly as cute as bunnies, so the emotional trauma might not be intolerable )

With every post you make I like you less and less. I'm glad you feel that it's a negligible emotional impact to purposely kill a marine invert because they're not really as cute as bunnies. Maybe reef keeping isn't for you, breeding bunnies seems more up your alley.

talk about a bio-load.

organism YOU ARE THE F%#&#* MAN...Keep up the good work!

Just to clarify for everyone...Please do not take anything from the socal pacific coast and put it in your tanks. Its cold water and you will kill it. Yes people that means anemones too.

ps...I need some of your bad a$$ macro organism

Ziiing! Here I am getting ready to go out and collect (not really tho). Good lookin' out!

^Dope sig pic REEFS

Good point. Thanks for making that clear.

This thread is posted in the "Biotopes" section, and is directed at people who keep pacific coast, cold water, biotopes.

Don't put temperate animals in a tropical tank. And NEVER release anything that's been in your tank, back into the wild, even if that's where it came from (it could infect local populations with non-local diseases or parasites)

Another personal attack. Do you have anything useful (and verifiable) to contribute?

You know what man, I've had it with you, you had your chance to step up and read the facts but instead wanted to get condescending while continuing to spread your bad advice without taking a few steps back to reassess the situation.

The link is right there in that "opinion" email from fish and game that I linked for you.

"Marine Aquaria Collector $415.25 Required for any person taking, possessing aboard a boat, or landing any live native marine species specified in FGC 8597 from California waters for marine aquaria pet trade purposes. At least one person aboard each commercial fishing vessel shall have a valid marine aquaria collector permit."

Native marine species specified in FGC 8597, I've edited out the ones that don't apply here due to your limited attention span.

Also, I noticed that you posted that "There are many statutes that apply specifically to holders of permits other than a sportfishing license" etc... Just got off the phone with one of my DFG friends who is a warden in the La Jolla area, and he was very, very clear that the sportfishing license is for food (his words "sportFISHING"), and in no way shape or form will he or any other warden interpret it as otherwise. He said that DFG is cracking down heavily on this, and is offering rewards of $500-1000 for information leading to the prosecution of people taking marine life for ornamental purposes.

You can push your "opinion" on this forum and the other ones that you're pushing it on, but if you really believe in your opinion as much as you claim to please pm me your address and we'll see where you stand when DFG gets there. He was extremely curious to know who it was that was saying these things online, and said "tell that guy good luck convincing the judge that he was going to eat those anemones and gorgonians." He guessed the fine at $1000 each. How many anemones do you have again?

Good information organism.

Thanks for the heads up and looking out.

Very confused. Illegal to transport any fish/invertebrate in CA? But... DFG says right hither, notably 632-b:



I'm interested in collecting shore crabs (1 or 2) for a biotope I'm interested in starting (but haven't begun in any capacity). Most of this is, honestly, Greek to me. So kindly point out my error if you will.

Organism:
Again, you are giving someone's opinion (a game warden) without siting the DFG Code. I've never seen any statute that says that a sportfishing license is only for food. In fact, a sportfishing license is required to collect reptiles in California, and nobody expects people to eat a snake they legally collect.

Be that as it may. I'm done.

I wanted to start a thread that could help people look up the laws for themselves. I'm obviously interested in abiding by the law. I was very willing to be convinced that I was wrong in my reading of the DFG code, and expected, at worst, a debate about what the words in the statues meant. I had started a reply to your posting of statute 8597, when I saw this post. I never expected anyone to be so malicious. I asked you to convince me, but you chose to try to injure me instead.

I'm sorry I ever brought this up

I wouldn't take it personally...

He just wants to state what he knows as facts.

Now we have your opinion and his opinion.

All of us choose individually where to go from here.

I wouldn't get my feelings hurt over it.

Well I guess my best bet is my uncle, Gary Radford. He works for the Department of Fish and Game and his job (volunteer work, I think) is to catch people who fish or collect illegally. Will let you all know.

Please follow up on 632b please. Can this be a safe area?

I just shot my uncle an email, think he's a volunteer at DFG.

Oh wow... anger management classes? I wonder if they have a gift card at Vons for that.

Sorry, the something that really gets to me is people endorsing poaching in my back yard. This is actually a lot deeper of an issue for me since environmentalists are using examples just like these to push an agenda banning fishing in most of Socal. Thanks to their bribes and fake science, as of now most of la jolla, 99% of laguna, most of malibu and all of southern pv will be banned for fishing in 2011 under the guise of the MLPA process which was originally intended to be applied for pollution concerns, but was hijacked to ban fishing. Anyone that wanted to take their kids fishing or walking in tidepools in those places can thank threads like these, I know it sounds like a bad movie or conspiracy theory but unfortunately it's not.

A lot of divers and fishermen worked for over a year non-stop to try and minimize the closures, I missed enough work to almost get me fired here, and the worst things that we were up against were the threads like this one, mostly posted by good but misguided people, that the enviros combed the internet for to show that the ocean needs to be protected from us awful humans by banning any consumptive activity from it. If you really wanna see the a-bomb go off you should post this thread on the socal forums of rc. I think that one guy who paved the way for us worked on this so much that he lost his job is over there, and also the president of the company that imports cyclopeeze is over there, we all went to so many city council and government meetings that dragged past midnight that I lost count. And about 90% of their huge closures passed, thanks to threads like these. If you really, really want to see an a-bomb you should post this on spearboard.com or bloodydecks.com, plus there's a few DFG wardens and higher-ups on those sites that can give very clear answers

Here's my uncle's response:



Not much help uncle Gary! I asked him if he has any resources that specifies reserves. Of the maps C-Rad posted, I don't see Redondo Beach marked off.

im all for conserving the natural resources. re populate depleted resources.

It's scientifically proven that California has the second best managed fishery in the world after New Zealand so it's conserving its natural resources wonderfully without banning fishing, and has no depleted fish stocks. It's also proven that these closures will damage fish stocks and the local ecosystem once they go into effect by putting a ton of pressure on the few remaining fishable areas, which also just happen to be the most polluted. We can have this argument in another thread, but I'd really, really prefer not to since every argument on this one is always scientific facts vs unfounded environmentalist emotionalism. And emotionalism says that if you can't win with reason, go for volume. I'll pass thanks

This should clear it up though...

http://www.wonews.com/t-LegislativeUpdate-...ies-051109.aspx

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/200...stry/?uniontrib

Fake science, techno climacracy.

Copen____

_______gate

Tempting debate but not on this Thread.

H

im not trying to debate anything here bud. i was talking globally.... thanks for the links tho, interesting read. i am just not of the sort that purposely kill things. not a big fan of the fishing industry.

I completely agree, someone needs to tell a few countries that no, they can't keep destroying the rest of the world's resources after they ravaged all life within 500 miles of their countries in search for sushi. The commercial fishing industry really needs to start being monitored much more closely for sure...

Is there a license where I can go out and get an urchin every now and then?

Urchins are fairly commonly taken for food and are specified in the regs, I think the bag limit is 35 per day. The big red ones are very tasty actually

I've been reading through the site and it's so hard to pick out what you can and cannot do.

What license would I need for that... or would I need a specific stamp on the license?

I think you need a sportsfishing liscence to take urchins and they don't need to be killed on the beach you can take them home to cook them.

Here in NC... the regulations are just as convoluted and unclear. Depending on how you read it, even sport fishing could be illegal. Even when using an official scientific collecting permit it is best to not hang around too long and try to avoid dealing with any authorities. A friend was collecting with a group in the mountains and had a whole afternoon swallowed up while they were forced to wait for a local sheriff to go through channels and eventually figure out the truth. This would have likely been avoided if he just said that he was catching them for bait.

I know many very experienced people here, one who wrote the local native fish book for this region, who all state that the regulations are indeed unclear and that you should be fine collecting fish as bait. As many who have bought live bait know... bait is kept in tanks as well. So it would be difficult to regulate against that. There are protected species and unprotected ones. Most for good reasons.

The bottom line is that you'd have to be a complete moron and an evil S.O.B. to release any fish or other organism from a fish tank in to the wild whether the fish originally came from there or not. That is why I hate sport fishing nurseries so much.

Let's face it. There is a big difference between legality and morality. They don't often coincide.

I wish I could collect, where I live, water is so cold, is completely the opposite from what i have in my nano