Chiloe's wild west

In northwestern Isla Chiloe sits the small city of Ancud, population around 25,000, one of the larger cities on the island. West of Ancud, and extending south for the entire west coast of the island, is wild, undeveloped coastline. Most of this is officially protected as park land. Road access is rare and few fishermen work on this western coastline, especially as compared to the busy eastern shores. This is understandable, as the western coast lies directly exposed to the Pacific, while Chiloe’s eastern shores open into the Gulf of Ancud.

Directly west of Ancud is one place where a road does manage to snake all the way to the wilder coast. Half way to the coast the road turns to a rough dirt road and houses effective end, save the occasional capensino dwelling. Here is the Pinguineria- a protected nesting area for two species of penguins (Magellanic and Humboldt)- and an area frequented by tourists from all over the world. A few restaurants catering to tourists spring out of the beach about where the grass begins, although today they appear closed. The black and white penguins seem to be web-footed gold to these restaurants and the Ancud agents who sell (overpriced) package tours to tourists.

Just down the beach from these restaurants, benefiting from the wind and swell protection that the penguin-speckled islands just offshore offer, a group of artesanal fishermen live right on the beach in the warmer months. Their camps are the just like many salmon setnet fish camps in Alaska- simple, functional, snug, and homey. These are members of a local fishing cooperative, known here as a syndicate, which together manage and harvest the local loco, a mollusk of high value, with an appearance that sometimes leads to it being mistaken as abalone. When not diving for loco, these fishermen are die-hard skiff fishermen.

I walk up to four fishermen on the beach and strike up a conversation with the closest man. Mario, in his mid-30’s with an easy smile, has an uncanny knack for known half a dozen synonyms for any particular word. The fishermen on the beach are four of 60 men and women in the local loco syndicate, which controls, monitors, and enforces loco harvesting in the waters directly offshore of this particular beach. I’m told that there are roughly 15 of the loco syndicates in the region. Loco longer than 10 centimeters along the long axis are harvested between March and July (mostly in June and July), at which time they’re the plumpest. Recently, loco have been garnering about 7,000 pesos/kilogram (roughly five bucks a pound) for fishermen, and earnings are split evenly between all members of the syndicate. Price-sharing and local management are both somewhat rare in the fisheries these days, and the concepts here are progressive. Many eyes are keeping tabs on how this management regime pans out, and the Chilean loco fishery is well known to fisheries management insiders worldwide, both for this artisanal control and its history of being overharvested.

This being outside of loco season, attention here is now on other species. Mario divides a gillnet with three others on the beach. They parcel the long net into shorter lengths, roughly 100 feet in length, to make each piece more manageable for one or two people to handle, using only human power. The gillnet mesh is larger than any I’ve seen before- probably 10 inch diagonal- and I’m told that it’s for manta ray (never has thought to eat these before myself). Also targeted here are cholga, chorita (mussels), almeja, lapa, macha (three types of clams), trimulco,, picuyo (two morphs of whelk), picoroco (a suiting name for barnacles), luga (kelp), bacalao (cod), pejigallo (elephantfish), jaiva (Dungy crab), merluza (hake), and corvin (undetermined finfish). This guys, like many fishermen who have their vocation entwined with their passion, basically will fish for whatever is abundant and of market value.

The fishing fleet here consists of a dozen or so 25-foot boat powered by 40-horsepower outboards. The skiffs are all fiberglass- certainly an anomaly on Isla Chiloe- and are probably a testament to the rough seas on this side of the island and to the financial success of the fishermen. Four men routinely go out in each skiff. Profits are split six ways- two shares go to the boat, and one share each to the fishermen. I suppose this equates to a crewshare of 17%. I’m not sure why I was made privy to these particular details. I’m now passing them on because I think that it shows how democratic and up-front the decision making seems to be in this local fishery. Disagreements are hashed out face-to-face in the cabin in the evenings. Too often in bigger fisheries accounting and payments are conducted with hazy and/or creative arithmetic.

In the cabin, we enjoy tea, mate, and a delicious salty crumble of fishy that once, I think, resembled a smelt. We eat boiled dungy crab by bashing the shells between two rocks. I’d guess I ate about a few heaping teaspoons of sand mixed in with the delicious crab, didn’t mind a bit. Ten of us are packed in to the one-room cabin, and ages ranged from 15 to 50, sitting on crates, stumps, and partially repaired chairs. This crew is sharp and tuned in not only to local marine affairs, but foreign affairs as well. Both affect them directly. I was informed that George Bush had recently had a pair of shoes thrown at him during a press conference (news to me), and we all had a good laugh over this. [Bush is uniformly disliked down here, although Chileans seem to have amazing patience with Americans, seeming to understand and forgive our national decision to give him a second term as president, although his stint seems to have had negative impacts on Chile.]

A poster of cetaceans on the wall kicked off another lively subject. Many species of whales are frequent visitors to the productive waters just off Chiloe’s west coast. These fishermen had all had very close encounters with various whales, and Eduardo, the oldest man in the room by a decade, retold with animated detail of the time that a sperm whale came up from below and grazed his boat. He told us that it knew exactly where the boat was, and only wanted to scratch it’s back- no harm intended. I told Eduardo a few sperm whales in Alaska and British Colombia had learned to pick fish off the longline as gear was being hauled, and that this sometimes infuriates fishermen, for stealing their fish. His response surprised me, as had the collective perspective of this group of fishermen since I first walked up to them on the beach. “Tienen hambre, exacto como nosotros,” he said with a shrug and a smile. They are hungry, just like us (humans).

I head out to take a walk on the beach in the dark, and bump into an ancient man, taller and skinnier than the rest of the group, with a long beard seeming to drip off his chin. His son, no spring chicken himself, appears behind him, and introduces his dad as “Rusputan”. Rasputan has a cracked but functional headlight on his forehead. I ask where they are going, and am told that they’re going out for loco…and a few confusing sentences which I interpret as, “the holidays are coming and we want a little extra money to have a real feast.” They say this with grins, I smile and laugh, taking this as a joke, as I’ve just been impressed for the full day with the structured internal management and embedded social welfare of this tight-knit group of fishermen, who seem to protect and share their collective resource so well. The two laugh as well, and were probably just pulling this gringo's leg. Probably.