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OK, people, listen up. Here we go. This is Nature's
Secret Service, the podcast that puts you in
the room with the men and women of wildlife law
enforcement. I'm Ed Newcomer, your host. And
before we introduce today's guest, I just want
to point out I've been kind of tracking how the
podcast is going. And I've been amazed and astonished
and flattered. We have listeners actually all
over the world. We had somebody tune in from
Tonga recently, which is just phenomenal to me.
I can't tell you how much I appreciate everybody
who's listening to the podcast, watching it on
YouTube, contacting me through the website with
your comments or suggestions. It's just been
great. I really appreciate it. Today, we're lucky
because we have an in -person guest who came
into the studio to talk to us, somebody I've
known for many years. Our guest today is Kathy
Ponting. She's a former lieutenant with the California
Department of Fish and Wildlife, which used to
be known as the California Department of Fish
and Game. She spent many years there as a uniformed
officer and ended her career as the lieutenant
overseeing their special operations unit, which
we'll talk about today. Really happy to have
her here. Kathy, thanks so much for joining us.
I'm glad to have you. Thank you, Ed. I'm happy
to be here too. It's been a long time since we
saw each other on the job. On surveillance. Exactly.
Last time we worked together, we were doing surveillance
in Los Angeles. That's right. So, you know, since
you retired, you're doing something really cool
that's still involved with wildlife conservation.
Just tell us a little bit about what you're doing
now with Marine Mammals. Yeah, I volunteer for
the Marine Mammal Center. I've been there for
nine years and it's a wonderful nonprofit that
our rescue range is from the Oregon border down
to Santa Barbara. And we are involved in the
rescue, rehab and release of all the marine mammals
that we have along our California coast. And
a lot of different things happen to them and
we learn from them too. I was telling you earlier,
they're sentinels of the sea. They're telling
us what's going on out in our oceans. And we
have our main research hospital up in South Salido,
which is just an amazing place. If you're ever
up there, they have guided tours, and it's pretty
amazing. You can see all the animals that we're
rehabbing. My facility's in Morro Bay. We're
a satellite ER hospital basically, and we do
a little bit of settling of the animals, and
they eventually make it up to our main hospital.
That is awesome. I love how so many people who
are involved in our profession, you know, they
they retire from conservation law enforcement
and then they go do something else related to
conservation. It's just in our blood, I think,
you know. It is. And what I liked about this,
it was completely different. I didn't get to
work very closely with pinnipeds during our investigations.
And it's interesting to learn about these seals
and sea lions and sea otters and. They're pretty
amazing critters, and we really try to keep them
around for the future. The other thing I love
about you, Kathy, is you're a second -generation
game warden. Your dad was a game warden for the
California Department of Fish and Game. Yes.
And now your daughter is also a game warden.
Yes, she is. Which is just incredible. You had
three generations of... Very proud mama. Yeah,
that's very cool. So let's talk a little bit
about your career. I mentioned you were a uniformed
game warden for a while, but you ended your career
as a plainclothes officer, a lieutenant overseeing
the special operations unit. We've had other
guests on who've worked for California SOU. Savannah,
our great plant case that we had. Yay, Savannah,
in season one. But can you tell us a little bit
about, you know, give us a short description
of what SOU was like when you were working there
and As the leader of that unit, how did it operate?
Well, I think I was there at a good time. Our
state budget was healthy. During the 12 years
that I was on special ops full time, we had anywhere
from 10 to 11 officers on the team. And that
was the unique thing about our special ops is
we worked as a team. We were pretty much doing
the investigations and surveillances and the
covert work as a team. So a team of like 10 and
12 people, that's a big team. It is. That's unusual.
Most states might have a plainclothes unit or
a special operations unit, but they probably
don't have 10 or 12 officers. In that setup,
were you guys working always together? Or would
you split off and work on your own cases? How
did that work? We usually were together. Sometimes
we would split the team if we had a couple of
investigations going on simultaneous. We always
had several cases going on. But using personnel
correctly, time management, sometimes if we had
enough people to go and do a surveillance, We
would split the team. We would try to work a
couple cases at a time. But for the most part,
we were together most of the time, which required
a lot of good people skills because you're basically
living with your team. And I have to say, during
my career as a special agent with US Fish and
Wildlife based in LA, I had a lot of opportunities
to work with you specifically and your team.
And I was always extremely impressed with the
quality of I don't know, law enforcement professionalism
among your specific team of wardens. And one
of the things I was always impressed by was your
skill at what I call rolling surveillance, which
is you're following somebody who's on the move.
And you guys were invisible. You were extremely
skilled at that technique. And do you think that
just came from working together for so long,
or did you specifically train to do that and
constantly train? I think both, Ed. I was fortunate
to have the same core team for almost a decade.
We would have some wardens come and go for various
reasons. It's really hard on your personal life.
You're on the road all the time. You're living
out of your van or your truck. It's not always
glamorous. But I had the same core team, and
we could finish each other's sentences. That's
how close we were. We focused on people's strengths
and what they knew how to do well. And we just
knew how to operate. So when we went into surveillance
mode, it was like a dance. I mean, it was just
something we were used to. The team was very
good at it. We were very successful. And there's
strength in numbers when it comes to surveillance.
And I do understand that it's a huge challenge
for other states. Because they don't have a team
that big you can still do really good surveillance
with a handful of people but Probably more short
-term and it is a lot more challenging and to
you know to its In a state like California where
you have very dense urban and you know situations
neighborhoods And you also have extreme remote
open areas The skill set or the techniques that
you use on a rolling surveillance in a city like
Los Angeles or San Francisco, it's very different
than how you run it if you're out along the coast,
you know, a single two lane highway along the
coast or in the, you know, back country. And
so it's not just a single skill set. It's like
multiple skill sets within a skill set, right?
We are always having to figure out. And when
a lot of times we'd start in a rural environment
and we'd have to use a certain technique for
rural environments, which is the most challenging
surveillance you can put a team into. And then
we would roll into a large urban, just like what
I drove in yesterday, the traffic of LA or San
Francisco or Sacramento. And it's a completely
different technique. It's a lot easier, but it's
also traffic can be a nuisance and get in your
way. It can trap you. It can trap you. When I
worked in LA, we did a lot of surveillance in
LA. So our team got pretty good at the urban
surveillance. I think only once in my career
did I do an extended one, and that was down to
San Diego. So you're still on. you know, you're
on I -5, so you got lots of lanes to kind of
lose your cover team in. But yeah, real challenge.
And your team was really excelled at it. I was
always very impressed by that. Some of the, you
know, you worked on different types of cases.
And the other thing I noticed when I would work
with you guys is you tended to focus on problem
areas. Like, you would identify a problem area
or species that was under a lot of pressure and
you would focus your time and energy on that
particular issue. Which, you know, a uniformed
warden wouldn't necessarily have time to do that
because they have patrol duties and all kinds
of other things, right? It's a different life.
Yeah, it's a different life and it's a hardcore
group of people. It's a very hardcore group of
people. One of the species that your unit worked
on a lot during your time was a marine species
called abalone, which my listeners in South Africa
will know that as abalone. That's what they call
it, abalone. But same critter. Can you tell us
a little bit, what is abalone? Where is it found?
And why was it a species of concern when you
were working? What's its current situation? What
is it about the Sabaloni anyway? It's an amazing
species. It's not cute and fuzzy, like working
bears or deer or anything, bobcat. But it's such
an important resource to California. And the
North Coast of California was one of the last
viable red populations, red abalone populations
in the entire world. You know, there's not abalone
spread out all over the world. You've got South
Africa, you've got New Zealand, British Columbia,
California, little bits of Oregon and Mexico,
and that's pretty much it. Yeah, and it's not
the entire coastlines either, right? Like South
Africa, it's pretty much limited to the Western
Cape there, and California, it's more northern,
right? Well, it does, you know, we do have populations
down in the Channel Islands, which is off the
coast of Santa Barbara, L .A., Ventura. And then
it goes down into Mexico and this type of species
changes. So, yes, but the North Coast is where
the red abalone were. And the red abalone are
one of the largest abalone in the world. And
what is it, though, like an abalone? What kind
of animal is this? It's a marine snail. I wish
I could describe it as a little more flattering,
but it's a marine snail. And their shells are
beautiful. The entire side of their shells are
beautiful, green, blue, iridescent. And a lot
of times, they're made into jewelry, and they're
very decorative. That is just a byproduct of
the abalone. The target is for the meat. It's
a delicacy. It's caught up in the whole traditional
Chinese medicine arena. Aphrodisiac, considered
an aphrodisiac, and also gives status to those
who are capable. And to harvest them... Yeah,
what's the process for harvesting? It's mostly
diving. We used to have a commercial industry
in California, and there was about 84 dive boats
permitted. And they would use hookah gear, which
is surface air supplied with hoses, with the
big regulators, masks type things. And they would
harvest. We had to close the season in 1997 because
of the collapse of the stock, which was only
allowed between the Farallon Islands and the
Channel Islands. The North Coast was always protected
with just sport take only. So on a very minus
tide, one who is not a diver could go out and
rock pick because they're exposed. I mean, they're
a snail. They're adhered to the rocks. They can
move. They're very slow. I could catch it. Most
people would dive. And the regulations were absolutely
no scuba. It was only breath hold, free diving
only. And the reason behind that was that limits
the depths that people can go to harvest. And
the deep water stocks were considered our refuge
stocks. So the commercial trade, though, was
shut down in the 90s. So all that was left really
was what you called a sport, which would be you
or me could get some type of fishing license
to go out and collect, and that would be using
this breath holding technique. And presumably
that was for my own use, like I'm going to eat
this or I'm going to eat it. So at that point,
was commercial completely illegal? Yes. So after
the close of the 84 to 100 permitted, Commercial
divers, it was just sport take. And no fish or
game taken under a sport fishing license or a
hunting license can be legally sold. Gotcha.
OK. So commercialization is prohibited under
sport take of any species. Interesting. You mentioned
there's a couple of interesting things about
these snails, these abalone. When they're out
there, what are they eating? What is an abalone?
Solely kelp, and specifically bull kelp. And
for people who don't know, off the coast of California,
there are huge kelp beds. Kelp forests is actually
what they're called. Habitat to a lot of different
species, but interesting. OK, so they eat exclusively
kelp. And you mentioned that they're important
kind of in the for different reasons, for food,
Chinese medicine, traditional medicine, all these
other things you mentioned. I didn't even know
they were used as an aphrodisiac. Is there a
temptation to commercialize abalone? They're
so highly sought after on the black market, Ed.
Why, though? Just for those reasons I told you,
the beliefs. There are delicacy, too. They taste
amazing. You asked me earlier what abalone tastes
like. Abalone tastes like abalone. I can't even
compare it to anything else. I mean, I used to
die for abalone. I enjoyed it thoroughly and
one of my favorite foods. But they just highly
sought after, on the black market, one red abalone
can sell for $100. Wow. in the city or Chinatown
or wherever they happen to take them. So the
temptation is there for... Monetary reasons.
To people to poach these abalone in high numbers,
I assume, too, right? Yes. With the sport fishery,
I assume there's a limit on how many... Very
highly regulated. I mean, before we had to end
up closing the sport season in 2018, and we'll
talk about those reasons later, but... I think
it was down to three abalone a day and eight
annually. That's what you could take if you were
a sport fisherman. Through the years that I was
working abalone cases, it just became more conservative
with regulations as the time went on because
they weren't doing very well. Yeah, so it became
kind of an important issue for the California
Department of Fish and Wildlife. It was a one
of the focused species that they wanted us to
work on, that and sturgeon and some other species,
but abalone was pretty much at the top of the
list. It's kind of a perfect example of how law
enforcement can play a role in either slowing,
stopping, or reversing the decline of certain
species. We've seen it again and again on from
stories from people who come talk to us on this
podcast about how they got involved in protecting
highly endangered species. And it really illustrates,
I think, the role of law enforcement in stopping
the decline or trying to stop the decline in
certain species. And your unit certainly has
some fascinating cases that they got into with
regard to abalone, which we're going to talk
about a little bit. One of the things I think
you mentioned to me is Abalone is kind of known
as, what do they call it? It's called Pacific
gold. That's how valuable it is, right? Pacific
gold. They would go and take a withdrawal from
the Bank of the Pacific. A withdrawal that does
not earn a lot of interest, right? Because it's
not growing itself. OK, so let's talk about one
of these cases a little bit. You have one you
wanted to talk about this kind of an interesting
illustration. There was a particular case you
worked on related. A couple of individuals were
involved in abalone poaching for commercial purposes.
What was that case? Tell us a little bit about
how that case started and how you got onto it.
So the team, we travel all over the United States.
I mean, the United States, well, that too. But
mostly California. We're responsible for all
the illegal commercial cases throughout the state.
So we're on the road a lot. We're gone a lot.
And sometimes we would take a break, like in
December, for a couple of weeks around the holidays.
And we were all on break, planning to be off
for a couple of weeks, which was much needed.
And all of us start getting phone calls on our
state phones in our home offices one night that
we've received some information. This was from
the lieutenant at the time. Pretty specific information
that an informant had given to one of our uniformed
officers, which, by the way, we worked very close
with our uniform officers. They were the boots
on the ground. They're the ones that knew what
was happening in their district. most of our
amazing information from them and such as this
case. Yeah, I think those special units, these
special investigative units or special operations
units, if they don't work seamlessly with the
more routine, like patrol oriented or routine
investigative oriented officers, they are just
they're hamstringing themselves, right? Absolutely
hamstringing yourself. You're cutting off an
amazing resource that Why? I mean, so we worked
very close with our uniform squads in the areas
wherever we were working. Well, it led to a tip
on this case, right? It did. This warden got
a very specific tip that this gentleman named
John had been running up to the North Coast on
a regular basis, poaching abalone and coming
back and selling them. And his name did not ring
a bell to any of us. It was like, whoa, he's
not on our radar, but that's some very specific
information. And plus he's leaving within the
next few days again. It was obviously, it was
definitely a woman scorned that gave us that
information. But hey, we're rolling with it.
Some of the best tips come from, we've always
said, ex -wives, ex -girlfriends, ex -boyfriends,
ex -husbands. We'll give you the best tips. So
we get this call. It's dark. It's in the evening.
And we are all rolling. And in Santa Cruz, this
is in Santa Cruz, California, where it's occurring.
And our team lives all over. Because we come
together every week, and we don't know where
we're ever going to be. I mean, it depends on
the information I get, and I'll put out what's
called the week ahead. This is where we're planning
on doing. And our motto that we lived and died
by was plan on doing what you didn't plan on
doing. That was how we lived. And this was a
perfect example. So we are rolling to Santa Cruz,
California. We're all there the next morning.
And we're briefing on the information that we
have. And we know what to do. We know, OK, we
need to set up our surveillance team. So I was
the one that was point on the suspect's house.
And the rest of the team is just off in the wind.
And we're communicating on direct channels. And
for the first couple hours, I was just reporting
on the sheer boredom, because nothing was going
on, which is typical. And then, a couple hours
later, this red van pulls into the driveway.
This John, who we identify later as John, gets
out, opens a hatch, starts covering the back
hatch with tarps, puts in a duffel bag, backpack.
And he jumps in and he takes off. So now we're
going to do what we do well. We're going to follow
this guy. We're thinking we're just following
John. Well, he goes into old Santa Cruz, pulls
up to a house, and by this time we have another
one of our officers on point. Point person's
not always the same person. It's wherever you
end up. And he's like, wow, this place looks
really familiar. John was just sitting in the
van and out walks Joel, and we recognized Joel,
carrying two scuba tanks. And Joel Roberts was
a ex -commercial abalone diver, very famous.
Him and his partner had the fishing vessel Deeper
Blue. They were infamous for just being these
good -looking blonde surfers, and they worked
hard, and they dove the Farallon Islands, which
is the breeding ground of the Great White. So
they were kind of glorified in what they did.
They were abalone cowboys. Yeah, they were. They
were. And they were both really into surfing,
and they also used their boat out at Mavericks
to tow some of the famous surfers out. So it
was like, oh my gosh. And we had heard rumblings.
And this is three years after the close of the
commercial season. Early 2000s. Early 2000. So
we're like, OK, this is really getting interesting.
So Joel jumps in the van. And they start heading
north. And sure enough, we're immediately going
up. We're in Santa Cruz. So next thing we know,
we're headed towards Sonoma County. Well, after
we get into the San Francisco area, they make
this left turn onto Gary Boulevard, which is
kind of the Sunset District and just not where
you would dive for abalone. We're like, OK, something's
going on here. pulls in and parks next to this
rickety old storage shack that had double doors
on it and locked with a hasp. He gets out of
the car and he looks left and right and he keys
himself in and he leaves it ajar and one of our
other officers was in a great point position
and he could see that he opens a big chest freezer.
So we know this is a cold storage area. So we
think, okay, this is really getting interesting.
Elsie comes out with five gallon bucket. So jumps
back in the car, goes to a dive shop in Marin
County, gets two airfields in his tanks. And
we're like, OK, let's go. And we get into Sonoma
County, stop at Kmart. Are those even open anymore?
Yeah, Kmart's gone. Come out with these four
huge totes. So we know they're serious. Yeah,
this tip you got's looking pretty good. It's
looking really good. So we're kind of ready to
roll. And they just go north a little ways and
pull into Motel 6, get their room, key themselves
into room 28, and shut the blinds. There we sit.
That's the nature, the hurry up and wait, the
boredom. You've got to stick with it. You know
what's going to happen. You're always going to
have somebody on point. You might switch people
out. Point people have to sleep. That was another
one of our models. We can sleep when we're dead
So we watched it and watched it and watched it
and And we also knew unfortunately that Joel
had a very serious heroin addiction So we knew
that this was probably a lot that fueled his
activities. So he may be involved in abalone
poaching to make money for his drug habit. Yes.
Wasn't there another connection Joel had to,
like, abalone conservation or something like
that? Did you know about that at the time? Yes,
we did know about this. He was selected to be
on the abalone advisory committee of the state
of California while he was a diver. And I think
he still was on it after the commercial season
closed, that it was a group of people from all
different walks of all things abalone. that made
suggestions on how to enhance the populations,
how to spend the landing tax from the commercial
industry wisely to help enhance the populations.
And it was a conservation type thing to help
these populations because it's always struggled.
Unbelievable. Because they're so slow -growing,
did we even talk about that? No, we didn't talk
about their growth pattern. They're a very slow
-growing creature. They're a broadcast spawner,
which means the eggs in the sperm are released
into the water column, and they have to be in
very close proximity to have a successful propagation.
So everything about abalone makes their populations
very fragile. Right. So that was a slap in the
face to us. That was like, really? But also a
motivator, because you get somebody who you suspect
is violating, who's also... Taking full advantage.
Yeah, taking full advantage. They're on a conservation
advisory committee. They're holding themselves
out as an abalone conservationist. And you know
they're violating. That's a motivator for a law
enforcement officer. That person would have gone
to the top of my list. Yes. And he was definitely
on the top of our list as he walked out of his
door with dive tanks in his hands. So you have
to sit on them now because they're at the hotel.
But eventually, they do go out and poach, right?
Yeah, a little after midnight. door open, they
quickly walk out, jump in the van. And, you know,
we wanted to be real careful because it could
have been a junk food run, you know, who knows?
So we're very careful on our surveillance techniques
and knowing who he is and how close he worked
with fish and wildlife and being a commercial
diver. This guy's good at what he does, right?
So he was going to be an extreme challenge. to
stay with undetected. Right. He's got a lot to
lose. So we start headed to the coast and we
realize once he gets to our normal route to,
you know, the coastal beaches of Sonoma County,
we know we're on we're on a run. So we're being
very careful because we're on lonely Highway
one in the middle of the night. And that is a
surveillance team's nightmare. headlights are
seen for miles. We are the only ones out there
unusual with this guy that is just a radar detector
for surveillance. So it was a huge challenge.
So we worked our techniques the way we do. Don't
have to really go into all that detail. Don't
reveal secrets. Um, so we end up, we end up losing
his lights. So we suspected that he had stopped
in this particular area. It's called Fisk Mill,
if anybody's familiar with Sonoma County. And
this whole coastline is just epic dive areas.
Okay. So these guys aren't going on boats. They
go down to the beach and they take their dive
gear straight out into the water. Right. Okay.
And they can find an abalone right there. Oh
yeah. Most abalone are very close. Okay. Close
to the surface. That's why rock pickers can get
them at a low tide. At a low tide. I happen to
be right behind him at the moment in the area
that we think they went. I think they go into
the Fisk Mill parking lot, which is on the west
side of Highway 1, and maybe he's going to get
dropped off. So I go up this other road, Cruise
Ranch Road, very windy, beautiful dirt road with
some cabins, seasonal cabins up there, to get
a vantage, to turn out and get a vantage with
night vision, to see if he's in this parking
lot. And I come around a corner, not too far
off of Highway 1, and there's the van. Hatch
open. Joel at the back of it, holding a wetsuit.
Oh, shit. Trying to sneak around the side of
the van and close the hatch so whoever this person
is in this van won't see him. So I just told
the crew, I says, hey, here he is. They're up
here. I'm out of it. My van is toasty. So I'm
going to keep going and and just get out of this
surveillance for right now. And I went up and
pulled into a remote driveway from a summer cabin
that was unoccupied. So what did he do? Like,
did he then give up for the night because he'd
been seen by either? I assume he didn't. I think
you were a cop at that point or a warden. I don't
think he thought fishing game, but some citizen
saw him with a wetsuit at one o 'clock in the
morning, you know, at the back of a hatch of
across the street from one of the best dive areas
on the Sonoma coast. Did he give up then that
night or what did he do? He did. So we have our
team spread out, tucked in north and south and
Within five minutes, the team sees him headed
southbound. And they could tell there was still
two people in the car. Our officers were able
to see that when they drove by. So we're like,
OK, maybe he's going to go somewhere else because
there's synomachosis is big. Maybe he's going
to check another place down south. So we super
loose tail all the way into Jenner, all the way
into Gurnville, back into Petaluma, back into
room 28 at the Motel 6. And now it's like, I
don't know. The exciting world of law enforcement.
Yeah, exciting world of a game warden in SMU.
Yeah, it's very, you know, it's dynamic and flattering.
Yeah, it can be just... Right. So... But he doesn't
give up now. Like a good crook would be like,
Oh, I've been seen. I better not, but no, he's,
he's out there to get abalone and earn money.
What, what would be eventually? He was probably
questioning himself. Who knows? I'd love to have
been a fly on the wall in that room 28, but,
um, so we don't know if he's going to try a daytime
run. It's December, which is the sports season's
closed. So cover of darkness is going to be the
safest demo. There's no legal abalone technique.
Okay. So here we go. So we made the decision
the least tired person was going to take point
and everybody else and one other person would
stay there and everybody else went in. They're
always sleazy motels into the sleazy motel across
the street to try to get some sleep because we
don't know what he's going to do. Right. So that's
four in the morning, 11 o 'clock that night.
The door opens and we start this all over again.
And, you know, we have rotated people through
the hotel rooms trying to get some sleep and
we're doing pretty good now. So jump in the they
jump in their van and they take off and, you
know, When something doesn't work, you've got
it. You've got to do something different So we
use another technique You know John was his lookout
so that's next to impossible to actually watch
him dive, right? I was gonna say even with night
vision got a driver's dropping him off right
gonna keep an eye out Yeah, so that's that's
not gonna work So we're like, okay, we have to
seal him in or at least be able to prove that
if he does harvest that he know which county
to prosecute him in. Right. So since my van was
toasty, I just flew ahead of everybody and got
to the Sonoma Mendocino County line in the little
town of Gualala, which is an amazing little town.
Backed my van in a bunch, you know, by the grocery
store and gas station and just kind of secreted
myself there and just watch that road because
if he does cross into Mendocino, we need to know
that. So he never did. And then we had our Southern
units just wait in Jenner. I mean, all spread
out, hidden. And probably about seven in the
morning, here they come, past our officers in
Jenner. So we could say they stayed in Sonoma
County. Because on Highway 1, to get anywhere
else, into Mendocino County, you'd have to go
all the way back into Highway 101. Makes no sense.
So you basically know that between 11 p .m. and
7 a .m. they spent, they were out doing something.
Yeah. In that county. In that county. Okay. How
did you figure out what they were doing? So.
This is crazy. When we get back to the motel,
they go back upstairs. I walk by the back of
the van, which by the way was a rental van. And
that's another technique. They always rent vehicles.
They don't always. They mostly poachers mostly
rent vehicles because number one, if you run
the plate, it doesn't come back registered to
anybody in particular that you can identify.
And number two, we have had huge success in vehicle
forfeitures. They don't want their cars forfeited.
So this is rented from rent a wreck. I swear
to God it really was called that. And now I can
see those four totes that were stacked inside
each other, empty with all the lids in the top
tote, all laid out side by side with a sleeping
bag rolled over. Interesting. Thrown over it.
And Joel's wet dive gear still in the back. So
we're like, okay. Now, interesting. This is an
interesting law enforcement point here. There's
no reasonable expectation of privacy in a vehicle.
that somebody can walk by and look in the window.
Oh, absolutely. So you don't need a warrant to
walk by a vehicle and look in the window and
see. You're in a public place. Anybody can look
in there. Exactly. You're right. No expectation
of privacy. Yeah. OK. Interesting. Good. Yeah.
Yeah. Classic. Great technique to use. Yeah.
Yeah. We were lucky it didn't have tinted windows
because we could see very well. Yeah. So a couple
hours later, they come downstairs. I'm surprised
they didn't head out right away, but probably
needed a fix or something. They take off south,
headed back towards San Francisco. And we're
still being very conservative on our surveillance.
And we're getting into more traffic, so it's
easier. So we head over the Golden Gate Bridge.
He makes a hard right into the Presidio. I don't
know if you're familiar with San Francisco. And
he starts doing cleanup maneuvers. Interesting.
And clean up, by that you mean like counter surveillance,
right? Counter surveillance. So he's looking
to see if he's got a tail. So what sort of things
would he do? Pulling over to the side of the
road, pulling down into a dead end street and
turning around and waiting and just watching
everybody that's going by. And at this particular
location, he was very close to that old Cold
storage shed remember we talked about right so
we think that he hadn't necessarily Picked up
on our surveillance, but he was doing his counter
surveillance because he was getting ready to
land. Okay So they continue on and They start
getting their back on Gary Boulevard headed towards
26th Avenue, which is where this little shed
is And all of a sudden The van stops in the middle
of, I don't know if you're familiar with some
of those San Francisco streets, but they are
so busy and there's pedestrians everywhere. They
stop in the middle of the street. Joel's passenger,
he jumps out, runs across the street and starts
walking down Gary Boulevard. And we had already,
two of us had already parked our surveillance
vehicles just a little bit to the west of where
they, ahead of where they pulled over. Good timing.
He walked right in front of our van. Wow. You
know, head on a swivel, looking around. And we
jump out, you know, we get geared up. Because
at this point, we know what we're going to do.
I should back up a little bit. The rest of the
team stops John in the van. You make a traffic
stop. Yes. OK. And that. Everything is right
there. And John gives consent to get in the back.
Wow. OK. And those totes are loaded. Loaded with
abalone. And shucked abalone, too. Which is really
unfortunate, because most of the time that we
seize abalone in the shell, they can survive
a day or two out of water. And it was our policy,
because there was a handful of us that were state
divers. So we would take that evidence abalone,
photograph it, document it, and we would dive.
Put it back. Replace them on the reefs. That's
awesome. It's that valuable. Right. Because no
judge wants that pile of abalone sitting in his
courtroom. Plus, you're going to save it. Exactly.
And all the prosecutors totally agreed with that.
So we know we have, I think it was 129 abalone.
And these red abalone are very large. And he's
a very good diver. And so myself and the lieutenant,
ducks around a corner and we are right after
him and he's sucked up against the wall just
knowing that the look on his face was like oh
yeah here it is here's the day interesting i
wonder if at the last minute they had suspected
they were you were behind them it's possible
it's possible but how many abalone were in that
truck 129 and you said they're worth how much
a piece at that hundred dollars a piece wow okay
that's a big load so that's 1300 bucks yeah Okay,
so so so yeah, I'm sorry I kind of getting us
off track you bust Joel right there and you've
taken taking it down, right? Yeah. Yeah so we
We had suspected who his buyer was And when he
was a commercial diver there was a man named
Jimmy Fong who owned Goldmine seafood Pier 45
in Barcadero of San Francisco that was an import
-export fish dealer. And he bought a lot of the
abalone and shipped them to China. And it was
apparent that after the commercial season closed
that Jimmy and Joel still had the same commitment
to each other. It was business as usual, status
quo. I'm going to go get you some abs and sell
them to you and you export them. Interesting.
OK. So we really wanted Jimmy Fong, too. So Joel
had left his cell phone in the van. And as our
officers are inventorying the van and getting
the tow truck and everything, the phone starts
ringing off the wall. And it's Jimmy Fong. Jimmy
Fong. Nice. So one of our officers answers it,
trying to sound like Joel. Wow, nice. You're
not here. Where are you? And he's trying to play
it off. And you don't sound like yourself, so
he hangs up. And we come to find out that that
shed belonged to Jimmy Fong. OK. So these guys
were taking that load back to the shed that belonged
to Jimmy Fong. So they were, that sale was on.
You just interrupted the sale just before. Yeah.
Nice. But the good thing about 129 abalone, that's,
that's. Evidence that over over 12 is considered
for commercial purposes excellent So better case
stronger penalty. Yes more serious offense. Yeah,
so we had done a lot of work in Previous years
to strengthen our penalty sections on a lot of
this commercial poaching, especially abalone
and We got the penalties and fines increased
to $40 ,000 for each violation lifetime revocation
forfeiture of vehicles, boats, any equipment
used in the commission of the crime. And we had
felony conspiracy charges because they were working
in conjunction with each other. So we did end
up going to trial. So who'd you charge? You ended
up charging? We charged Joel Roberts and John.
John, okay. What about Jimmy? We did not have
enough for Jimmy. It was a lot of circumstantial
evidence, but we knew. But we knew we didn't
have him good enough to where he would be bound
over to Superior Court in a preliminary hearing.
Before we get to the trial, though, the charges
and trial on Joel and John, did you ever come
up with any other evidence to suggest that this
was not like a one -time deal? Oh, yes. As with
any case we make, when you make an arrest, you're
not done. Right. There's so much investigation
to go, you know, to get that bigger picture.
We want that bigger picture. So seizing cell
phones, doing cell phone search warrants and
getting all that information. We interviewed
the employees at Motel 6 in Petaluma. Wow. Good.
That's good. That was smart. Yeah. And it was
a gold mine. Yeah. wasn't Jimmy Fong's gold mine,
but it was a gold mine. And yeah, they had records
of Joel checking into Motel 6 like a couple of
times every week for months. Wow. Okay, so you
know what he's doing. Yeah. But presumably you
couldn't necessarily charge him with extra counts
because yeah, you know what he was doing, but
you can't prove that beyond a reasonable doubt,
right? Yeah, but this one ended up being enough.
Really? Okay. You got multiple counts on him.
Well, we had felony conspiracy to harvest abalone
for commercial purposes. Right. And remember,
I told you the $40 ,000 fines, the jail time
and stuff like that. We all had to testify at
the preliminary hearing. He was bound over to
Superior Court and we didn't go to jury trial.
We actually ended up, there was a plea on that
one. But the plea was good. This judge was not
happy. So Joel and John pled guilty? Yes. To
this one poaching incident? Yes. So Joel got
three years in state prison. Wow, that's a great
sentence. That's a great sentence. Yeah, it is
a great sentence. Plus a lifetime revocation
of licenses. Funky got, John Funky, he got, he
was his, you know, lookout. Right. He got like
200 some days, county, a substantial fine. But
Joel went down pretty hard. That's a great result.
And you know, going back to what you discovered
through the search warrants of the phones and
interviewing the motel people, It showed that
he had certainly done this before. You might
not be able to charge those, but I think people
kind of forget. Bad guys forget anyway. Sometimes
maybe officers forget. Gathering that information
can be used in sentencing. That can come up before
a judge and say, well, Your Honor, we caught
him here and he had done exactly the same MO,
right? Same MO. And that's all spelled out in
the report, the dates, the times that he was
up there. Beautiful. And it's shocking. It shocks
the conscience of knowing. And if he did the
math, I think we did the math on how many times
he'd gone up there. He probably would have dove
two nights. He probably would have used both.
He did use both tanks. He probably would have
used both tanks, went and got an airfield. There's
dive shops all up and down. that area and gone
out again. So he could have taken twice as many.
If he hadn't got hinked up when he saw the vehicle
that first night and gone out that night and
the second night, he would have doubled the amount.
Right. Wow. And here's a guy who's on this conservation
advisory group. Abalone Advisory Committee for
the State of California. Shameful. And what's
really bad about Scuba is, you know, you can
stay down. He was a good diver. He could probably
stay down an hour because you're not really that
deep on some of these reefs. And he's just completely
mowing down a reef. And remember, I told you
about broadcast spawning. They need that proximity
within a meter or two to be able to successfully
propagate. completely clean out a reef of all
abalone, there's no reproduction going to ever
go on again. So it's just, you've decimated that
area. Yeah, shameful. Yeah, and you're separating.
Even at best, you're starting to create more
distance between individual abalone so that broadcast
spawning is not going to work. You know if they're
not gonna be successful when it's and Here's
a guy who knew that right because he knows abalone.
You know that more than anybody biology and he
Still very intelligent young man driven by is
actually Greed in his drug. He was actually well
spoken Didn't resist I mean he he wasn't a jerk
nice, but you know he he was He made some really
bad decisions in his personal life that drove
him to have to do this. And, you know, you can't
feel sorry for somebody like that. Not with the
damage that they have done. I agree. And he kind
of never recovered. He had the drug problem.
Never recovered. Unfortunately, passed away at
the age of 50. And he was 37 at the time we got
him. Just... The demons he couldn't he couldn't
shake the demons So this obviously was not the
only abalone case you worked successfully during
your time What You know, there's a lot of things
impacting abalone Certainly illegal poaching
for commercial purposes doesn't help right? Right,
but at the same time, what are some of the other
things that were going on with abalone? I mean,
we can't that the elephant in the room, of course
is Bigger factors, right? Yes, and it's it's
climate change that's really impacting abalone,
right? Yes, so You know during my era with special
ops climate change was starting to be talked
about but it wasn't like we know it today So
we we put our heart and soul into trying to Keep
this population viable. I mean And that not just
law enforcement, but the biologists everybody
that works for California trying hard right that
have done all the studying and the Yes, it's
just so much effort has gone into trying to Save
this population, right? So have you ever heard
of the blob? No, and I wanted to talk to you
about this because I had not heard about it before
I talked to you. They call it that. It's basically
a marine heat wave that occurs out in the ocean.
And in 2014, we had a huge one off the coast.
I mean, it was massive. And in addition to that,
in 2013, we started the the sunflower sea stars
started, they started dying from disease. And
this is a whole chain of events. And we talked
earlier about, I'm a firm believer that one ocean,
one health, everything's connected. Yeah, we've
talked about that many times. It's just, everything
is so connected. Right. So the sea stars, start
dying off in mass quantities. And they're the
large ones that just go over the ocean floor.
Starfish kind of would. I would call starfish.
But this is why. Why are these dying off? Diseases
and this warming of the seas absolutely did not
help. It makes them vulnerable, more susceptible
to disease. I mean, it didn't just affect the
sea stars. It affected all marine life. Right.
And this blob you're talking about is a blob
of warm water. Warm water. It kind of moved into
northern California and sat, right? Yes. I think
it was more than northern California, too. So
these sea stars, this is the chain of event.
These sea stars are the main predator of purple
urchins. Purple urchins are very, you know, remember
we talked about abalone and their main diet is
bull kelp? Right. North coasts usually just an
amazing bull kelp forest The sea stars are dying
The water is warming. It's this massive explosion
of purple urchins which are not the desirable
red urchins that there was also a commercial
industry for because it's if you're a sushi eater,
it's it's they're gonads and it's the only that
you have on That's sea urchin. So the purple
urchins explode. They occupy the same reefs as
the abalone. They eat the same thing as the abalone.
They eat through our north coast bull kelp. They
deforest the bull kelp. Like 90 % of our bull
kelp was just completely devoured. So we have
all the abalone that have starved to death and
now the purple urchins are starving to death
So you see that whole connection you take out
you take out one species that controls another
species that Controls another species and the
next thing you know you have this catastrophic
collapse of such a valuable resource, and that's
what we're faced with today and You know we talked
about Glass half empty, glass half full, and
I'm glass half full. I'm glass half full myself.
So we got to figure this out though. So these
sea stars come in, the sea stars die. Purple
urchins come in, eat all the bull kelp that causes
the abalone to starve to death. Abalone populations
crash. Do you have kind of a sense on how much
abalone populations have crashed? I read from
the department like 94%. 94 % of the Abalone
is gone, basically. Wow. So glass half full us.
Kathy? Well, we have a lot of big brains working
on this. We have a lot of amazing scientists
that have dedicated their lives to abalone. And
they're trying everything they can. There was,
and I don't know if they're still doing it, there
was a big volunteer dive program where you could
go out there and dive. All you're doing is crushing
purple urchins, just trying to eliminate them
off the reef so the few abalone that are left
have room and maybe some bull kelp will grow.
There is another blob out there right now, apparently
the size of North America. We'll see what happens
with that. We just have to keep going. We just
have to keep trying. Yeah. You can't like, oh
well, you know, because look at the history of
some of the species that we thought we lost.
Right. And we got them back. Yeah. You know,
for a lot of different various reasons. But I
mean, this one's a daunting task, Ed. Yeah. But
we can only hope. You know, yeah, and species
can be very resilient. I mean, the sad thing
is, I just saw today that there's a species of
curlew in Europe that has been declared extinct.
As of like today, it's officially declared extinct.
And nobody really knows why. But on the other
hand, we in the United States recovered our own
bald eagle. It was nearly extinct for a number
of reasons. We've recovered the California condor.
grizzly bears, buffalo, bison, a whole host of
species. And those were daunting tasks. We thought
we had lost them. Huge daunting tasks, cost us
a lot of money. And so, yeah, you have to hope
that species, you have to trust that species
can be resilient and keep working to give them
just that tiny bit of space that they might need
to succeed, right? Right. and not give up hope.
I think that's the biggest thing. Or even as
you and I have talked about before, if you're
going to be part of a lost cause, make sure it's
a good cause or something like that. Yeah. Right?
So I mean, there are a lot of things that they're
doing. They're trying to do a lot of aquaculture
with Kelp and things like that. And I think they've
had some successes and failures. And you just
kind of keep working added and because it's all,
it all really revolves around our kelp forest
up there in that particular situation. And there's
a lot more species that rely on kelp forests
as well. Sea otters. It's not just the urchin
and the abalone. A lot of our favorite food fish
require kelp forests. And that's their habitat.
That's their safe space, you know. If anybody's
ever dove through a kelp forest. It's just the
most amazing thing you can see with all the different
species hanging on to it and swimming through
it. It's just a marine wonderland. So what do
you say to the average American who's kind of
bummed out now that they learned about the plight
of the abalone off our coast? So what do you
say to people like your daughter who are currently
game wardens? Just keep up the good fight. Even
if you think it's a lost cause, I think that's
where you're going with that. You never know.
What if we did give up? What are we doing? We
know for sure what the outcome is going to be.
I'm not saying that humans can heal everything,
because Mother Nature is amazing, what she can
do. Just be aware of what's going on in our environment
and try to do the best we can with the resources
we have. Yeah. The other thing too, I think is,
you know, there's been some speculation that
obviously there's speculation that climate change
was playing a role here, right? And we know that
there are some people in the United States who
have turned climate change into a political issue
and deny it. But for me, that's not the important
question. Even the important question of is it
the cause? Even is climate change real? That's
not really the important question. The important
question to me is, do we want to be spewing pollutants
into our air? Do we want to be throwing garbage
into our water and producing methane gas that
could warm our atmosphere? It's not even an issue
of is it, isn't it? It's not a political issue.
It's a question of do we want this in our environment?
I think the answer is no. We'd prefer it not
to be. I don't want to be breathing it. So even
if we don't know, why not try to address the
issue and see if that's the answer? I mean, we
don't do nothing simply because we don't know.
We have some suspicions. It's probably better
to act on our suspicions than to ignore it into
oblivion. That's just my view. And keep the enforcement
because, you know, we still have the troops out
there. I mean, just because sport season is closed
doesn't stop, as we well know. You know, abalone
poachers, they're still out there just fighting
the fight, just like my team did. We still have
a special ops team. Still game wardens out there,
still special agents with US Fish and Wildlife.
The key is law enforcement, I think, takes the
pressure off and maybe can give species that
little extra breathing room they need to make
that recovery if they can. Right. Maybe it was
that... Two or three or four reefs that didn't
get poached that might be the comeback. Yeah,
exactly that one holdout population. Yes out
there No, so Was that was our glass full I think
I think it's I think we're got a half full glass
we can we can close on I do want to say Kathy.
I you know, I knew you my entire You know, the
time that you were working when I was working,
I was aware of what you and your unit was doing.
I always enjoyed working with you in the field.
And I know you have lots of cool stories, not
more abalone stories, but also you worked on
a lot of caviar issues in California. And I do
plan to have you back to talk about a broader
discussion of caviar. We've had Sean Carnes on
this show to talk about the Russian caviar and
the involvement of battle fish. Sean's a great
guy. Sean's a great guy. And I would love to
get you and Sean on an episode. And we'll talk
about caviar issues across the entire United
States and the world, because there's a lot of
species in California and the United States that
are impacted. So we're going to have you back.
But thank you so much for coming and telling
us this story, talking to us about abalone. It's
an area that I'm sure very few people know about
unless they live in California or South Africa
or one of the areas where abalone is found. But
I appreciate you taking the time to come talk
to us. Thank you very much. Well, it's easy.
It's easy to do this kind of stuff when you're
passionate about it is. I mean, I never lost
it after I retired. I agree. It's just genetic.
100%. That's why it's so fun to come talk about
it with other people who care about it. So thanks,
Ed. And my listeners care about it too. So thank
you so much. Good. And we'll have you back. As
for the rest of us, I don't mean to leave you
on a down note about abalone. Keep your spirits
up. Keep fighting the good fight. Thanks for
tuning in. We'll see you next time. Nature's
Secret Service is written and produced by me,
Ed Newcomer, and is co -produced by the DHTV
team here at California State University, Dominguez
Hills. Follow us on social media and connect
with us online at naturesecretservice .com.