Posted on 04/23/2021 6:26:03 PM PDT by nickcarraway
About 25 feet beneath the sea off Southern California’s Catalina Island, David Hornbaker had his eye on some blue-banded gobies. The mesmerizing fish have bright orange bodies with thin, electric-blue stripes, and are highly sought after by marine aquaria collectors like Hornbaker for their high resale value.
Grasping a squirt bottle, Hornbaker squeezed to release an opaque, cloudy substance over some rocks where several gobies were hiding. One darted from behind a rock and into the open, where it became incapacitated and ceased to swim. Hornbaker then gathered it into a small net and placed it in a container strapped to his side.
A second fish then darted from the rock and met the same fate.
How do we know Hornbaker was doing this? Well, he was unlikely to have relayed the information himself, considering that it’s illegal to collect marine aquaria at Catalina Island, and also unlawful to use a chemical liquid substance to collect marine aquaria anywhere in the United States.
But there was another pair of eyes in the water on that November day back in 2013. They belonged to wildlife Officer Rob Rojas with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
After Rojas watched Hornbaker ensnare the second goby, he swam closer and held out a plastic underwater slate that read: “Game Warden” with an attached cloth badge.
Although Rojas was an eyewitness to the crime, the unusual case dragged on for more than seven years.
From the beginning, the underwater bust was atypical for Rojas. Though he grew up loving the water and went to the University of Virginia on a partial swimming scholarship, in Rojas’ 23 years with CDFW, there had only been about 10 cases in which his crime-fighting required a snorkel. Almost all of those incidents involved lobster or abalone poaching.
“This is actually the first and only marine aquaria case of its kind that I’ve made in my career,” Rojas says, referring to the fact that the fish were unlawfully collected using a chemical.
The practice is rampant in places like the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, where fish collectors are known to spray chemicals on reefs to stun fish. According to a report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 2008, up to 90% of the 11 million tropical fish entering the U.S. each year have been caught this way, and the vast majority of them die before they reach a retailer.
It surprised even the wildlife officers that this was going on in California, though. And perhaps even more surprising was that it took the better part of a decade to revoke the aquaria fish poacher’s licenses.
The long process began on Nov. 13, 2013, when Rojas and another wildlife officer named Spencer Gilbert, who has since retired, were patrolling in a skiff along the coast of Santa Catalina Island near Emerald Bay.
The rocky island is one of seven in the Channel Island archipelago, though it is not part of the national park. It’s managed by the Catalina Island Conservancy, a nonprofit, and there are designated no-take and limited-take zones protecting marine life around the island. However, poachers are regularly caught in the area, and according to CDFW documents, Hornbaker had already been warned by a wildlife officer not to collect aquaria fish at Catalina Island back in March 2013.
On a sunny afternoon eight months later, Rojas and Gilbert approached Hornbaker’s 45-foot sailboat, Carolee, in their skiff. A man on the boat gave the officers permission to board and then told them that Hornbaker, the boat’s owner, was scuba diving.
Rojas got back on the skiff, according to a CDFW press release, and patrolled around the area in search of bubbles, which would indicate the presence of a diver. He found them near Indian Rock and immediately strapped on his mask and fins and dove into the water.
The diver was about 30 feet down, and the visibility was around 40 to 50 feet, according to CDFW documents, which meant that Rojas could observe the diver, Hornbaker, beneath the water. Rojas could also see his plastic squirt bottles, an aquarium-style fishing net and a plastic container attached to his buoyancy compensator.
Rojas watched Hornbaker stun and collect the two gobies, then announced himself with the underwear slate and badge, motioning to Hornbaker to surface by pointing upwards with his thumb.
Although Hornbaker did begin his ascent, Rojas watched him leave the squirt bottles behind. Rojas swam down and retrieved them, then continued with the investigation above the surface, seizing the container holding the gobies.
During an inspection of Hornbaker’s vessel, Gilbert noticed a second container on the ocean floor beneath the boat. He took off his uniform and swam down, retrieving the container, which was filled with dozens of blue-banded and zebra gobies.
When wildlife officers asked where those gobies had been collected, Hornbaker said he got them on the “Avalon side of Long Point off Catalina Island.”
He said he wasn’t aware that it was unlawful to collect marine aquaria fish at the island, despite the fact that a business card from another wildlife officer — the same one who says she gave him the warning in March — was discovered in his wallet.
When wildlife officers inquired about the contents of the squirt bottles, Hornbaker first said he was using “compressed water” but later he said it was an isopropyl alcohol solution. Although the wildlife officers didn’t know yet what was in the squirt bottles, they issued Hornbaker a citation for unlawfully taking marine aquaria species off Catalina Island and seized his scuba gear, containers, squirt bottles and fish net.
They counted a total of 172 gobies in both containers. The colorful gobies, which are sometimes referred to as Catalina gobies because they were first discovered near the island, can rapidly switch their gender and are known for their beauty and peacefulness in an aquarium setting. They would have fetched close to $5,000 based on current fish prices listed on aquarium sites.
After the fish had all been documented for evidence, Rojas released them back into the water.
Several days later, Rojas packaged samples of the liquid in the squirt bottles and sent them to the department’s Water Pollution Control Lab in Rancho Cordova. Several months later, Rojas received an email from the lab stating that the samples contained quinaldine, a known fish anesthetic that is illegal to use in marine aquaria collection off California.
In a report, Rojas recommended that Hornbaker also be charged for the unlawful use of chemicals to take fish and for the unlawful deposit of a deleterious substance into California waters.
But Hornbaker continued poaching. Wildlife officials cited him yet again for more violations out at Santa Cruz Island, including a failure to list observers on his ship’s log, failure to fill out a sea cucumber dive log and possession of oversized rockfish, a near-shore fish, without a near-shore fishing license.
When a wildlife officer explained the violations to Hornbaker, he reportedly said that he had never been in trouble with the department before and was new at marine aquaria collecting, and therefore just learning the laws. During the previous encounter with Rojas and Gilbert, though, Hornbaker had said he had been collecting aquaria species for two years.
In May 2014, the underwater bust at Catalina Island saw results; Hornbaker was convicted of taking, possessing or landing gobies for the marine aquaria pet trade in a prohibited area — a misdemeanor. The court ordered him to pay $115 in fees and to forfeit his equipment.
Hornbaker later pleaded guilty to additional misdemeanors of landing rockfish longer than six inches under a marine aquaria collector’s permit and taking or possessing a fish on a commercial fishing vessel under a sport fishing license while the vessel was engaged in commercial fishing activity. This time the fine was $500.
On Jan. 30, 2017, the CDFW moved to revoke Hornbaker’s commercial fishing license, marine aquaria collector’s permit and tidal invertebrate permit. Hornbaker filed a notice of defense shortly thereafter, and then inexplicably, three years went by before CDFW filed a request for a hearing.
“The evidence in the record does not explain the lapse of time,” says a CDFW document.
CDFW documents show that Hornbaker testified that he made mistakes and learned from the experience. He denied using quinaldine, and testified that he did not know what that was. He also said that in the Catalina Island incident with the gobies, he swam from an area open to marine aquaria collection into the prohibited area while underwater, which wildlife officials pointed out was not supported by evidence.
Hornbaker’s fishing licenses were officially revoked in December 2020, and last week, CDFW set out an official release stating that Hornbaker has been permanently prohibited from collecting marine aquaria. He hasn’t been seen around the Channel Islands since.
And while the process took a strangely long time, CDFW’s Marine Enforcement District Assistant Chief Mike Stefanak did want to recognize the extraordinary efforts of the officers who jumped in the water back in 2013 and set the wheels in motion.
“[The] district has some extraordinarily talented and dedicated wildlife officers who go to great lengths to protect California’s marine resources,” Stefanak said. “It takes time for the criminal and administrative processes to work to bring criminals to justice, but the meticulous efforts of Gilbert and Rojas ultimately resulted in removal of a bad actor from the commercial marine aquaria trade.”
Interesting story, thanks for posting.
“then announced himself with the underwear slate and badge”
Spellcheck claims another victim.
A fascinating read!!
Who knew?
California has an incredible list of regulations in the nation, which is frustrating and in many instances unnecessary and nothing more than a means to generate revenue for the bloated government.
However, I believe this is not one of those instances. A good example is I recall In the 1960s my parents taking me and my brothers to the beach one night with our little beach buckets to catch grunion. There were hundreds of families with little kids there waiting for the grunion to come ashore to spawn. There were so many that it was impossible to count. All the kids (myself included) picked them up by the handful. It was perfectly legal at the time. My parents made us put them back in the water before we left because we weren’t going to eat them and most of them were already dead anyway. People would do this every night during the annual grunion run. Fast forward 50 years later, the grunion do not spawn anymore on most So. Cal beaches.
They took away a poacher’s fishing license. Does this stop him from poaching?
Amazing.
Thanks for posting
And why was his boat NOT considered part of his equipment?
Folks driving through Tennessee with $15000 cash in their car en route to buy a car can have that cash seized as "possible proceeds of drug sales", but some guy caught red-handed poaching aquarium fish gets away with a $100 fine?
Whoa.
Reading is fundamental: They can SWITCH gender. One or the other. Two.
I’m a California boater. Our boat is in the harbor in Ventura. Everyone hits the islands frequently and everyone knows the rules and regs for boating and fishing. It can cost you money if you don’t.
Ah, Ventura Harbor. Used to rent kayaks from Island Packers and take the ferry out the Channel Islands. Good memories.
Island Packers is such a great company. When I have out of state/town visitors I always book us a day trip to the islands. They’re always amazed at the wildlife Packers finds.
Yeah, definitely. Always enjoyed it.
“They can SWITCH gender.”
No, they can switch their sex.
L
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