Love et al Potential use of offshore marine structures in rebuilding an overfished rockfish species 



387 



4 Sites 



Density (fish/100 m-') 



of young-of-the-year bocaccio 



2003 



Figure 3 



Densities of YOY bocaccio (Sebaates paucispini.'i) (fish/100 m-) in southern and parts of central California 

 in 2003. Surveys were conducted at sites that were likely YOY bocaccio recruitment habitats, primarily 

 at nearshore kelp beds and rocky outcrops. Surveys by M. Love were conducted from the research 

 submersible Delta; the others were conducted by scuba divers. The open stars represent platforms that 

 were not surveyed; the closed stars represent platforms that were surveyed. 



the average yearly value, and 40% of the median value 

 for the entire range of the species (based on YOY esti- 

 mated abundances between 1990 and 2003). From the 

 same model, we estimated that these young fish will 

 eventually contribute slightly less (0.8%) than one per- 

 cent of the additional amount of fish needed to rebuild 

 the Pacific Coast stock. 



By comparison with most of the platforms we sur- 

 veyed, there was low or no YOY bocaccio recruitment 

 to natural reefs in southern and parts of central Cali- 

 fornia during 2003 (Fig. 3). During 2003, surveys were 

 conducted at 64 sites and no YOYs were observed at 50 

 of these reefs; most of the other 14 sites harbored very 

 low densities. The highest density noted at any natural 

 outcrop (8.9 fish/100 m^), observed at a small kelp bed 

 at Anacapa Island, was much lower than that at five of 

 the surveyed platforms. 



Discussion 



According to our estimates, the YOY bocaccio living 

 around seven platforms in the Santa Barbara Channel 



were important to the regional bocaccio population, and 

 it appears that a substantial portion of the YOY bocaccio 



