Shouts, shoves at hearing on protecting ocean 11/11/2009

A hearing on establishing protected areas of ocean along the Southern California coast boiled over into shouting and shoving on Tuesday.

State Fish and Game wardens had to jump in and separate two men in the audience, as shouts echoed through the hotel ballroom where a panel sorted through the competing concerns conservationists and commercial and recreational ocean users.

The loss of tempers came in an hours-long meeting before a task force panel voted 5-0 amid boos and applause to recommend a compromise package of protections to the state Fish and Game Commission, which is expected to substantially affirm it.

"You have not listened to us through this whole process," a man yelled from the back of a room as the panel began to narrow in on detailed preferences for specific locations.

Calls for him to sit down were met with "Come outside and tell me to shut up." Another man rushed him and then wardens hustled them both out.

Earlier, a demonstrator paraded through the room with a "Don't Tread on Me" flag.

At issue are proposals to create so-called Marine Protected Areas along a 250-mile arc of coastline from the Mexican border northwest along San Diego, Orange, Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, including offshore islands.

The areas are required by the state's Marine Life Protection Act of 1999, which found that existing protections had been established on a piecemeal basis.

The act requires creation of scientifically based systems of state marine reserves and state marine conservation areas to protect species and habitats within certain distances of each other.

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