Scuba Diver Girls Margo and Occhi were leading a guided tour on March 20th 2010 in La Jolla Ecological Reserve. They were enjoying the beautiful visibility after a long winter of bad conditions! The dive plan was to dive along the reef with the La Jolla Sea Caves as the destination. During March this dive is teaming with life but the biggest attraction is the horn sharks! They are everywhere hiding under the rocks, swimming by and generally just hanging out. They truly are a site to see! The other main attraction on this dive is the sea lions who have made the side of the cliffs their home. Not long after they dropped down, they came upon an abandoned lobster trap. Margo spotted it first and realized there was a horn shark trapped inside! Occhi immediately picked up the trap and attempted to free the half dead shark by shaking him toward the opening in the trap. Margo realized the shark could not find his way out so she reached in and by his tail, guided him through the opening. He escaped to safety! The girls went back the next day with the intention of removing the trap. They spoke to several people prior and were told that the lobster fisherman would retrieve abandoned traps if they were marked with a small buoy. The girls went and talked to a local lobster fishing company and were informed that in fact, they would not do this due to the fact that the trap was inside the reserve. Finally, they decided to proceed with pulling the trap out themselves. When they arrived at the cove they found that there were many children playing on the beach and the surf was quite large leading them to decide that these would be unfavorable conditions for pulling the trap out to the shore. They decided to instead disable the trap and go back for it when the conditions were better for this task. If anyone knows of a company that will retrieve these abandoned traps from La Jolla Cove, please contact us with their information. There are a number of these traps on the bottom of the ocean trapping marine life who are then left to die there. We are willing to mark the traps so they can be removed!
