It seems to have coincided with the sea star wasting of 2013. The variety of nudibranchs we were finding, including a few not seen around Palos Verdes before has dwindled to a handful of species. Where we used to see hundreds of Spanish Shawls we now find only a couple. The same for other common species. At Merry's Reef we found numbers of blue rockfish, vermilions, honeycomb, gopher and others. Yesterday there was barely two or three fish that were not kelp rockfish.
I don't believe El Nino has anything to do with this current situation. I've experienced a couple of El Nino events since I began diving and they have brought about a few sightings of tropicals in our area and arrow crabs by the thousands but hardly affected the local populations. Although the water was unseasonably warm in September it has since returned to the normal 50s.
The reefs around Palos Verdes are a great series of micro climates. Reefs near Torrance Beach, Flat Rock and Bluff Cove are completely different than reefs just to the south. Life found near San Pedro is nothing like what is found near Pt. Vicente or Marineland. Right now all of these reefs look the same. It's as if everything decided to leave or die at the same time.
