The California Fish and Game Commission reduced the annual allowed catch of red abalone from 18 to 12 per person and cut the season by two months during an emergency rule-making session last week. The changes result from low population densities and increasing mortality and starvation among the sea snails along the northern coast—the only area the recreational fishery is open in the state—due to poor environmental conditions.
Sonke Mastrup, the Department of Fish and…