Jewfish Point is a

headland A headland, also known as a head, is a coastal landform, a point of land usually high and often with a sheer drop, that extends into a body of water. It is a type of promontory. A headland of considerable size often is called a cape.Whittow, John ...

at the far southern end of Santa Catalina Island in

Los Angeles County Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, and sometimes abbreviated as L.A. County, is the most populous county in the United States and in the U.S. state of California, with 9,861,224 residents estimated as of 2022. It is the ...

, in the U.S. state of California. The point was named for a type of grouper, formerly known as the ''jewfish'', that is prized for its taste. The fish has been renamed due to the old name's offensive nature but the old name persists in several toponyms. The waters around the point were believed to yield "record-breaking black sea bass" for fishermen. This slow-growing fish now commonly called ''giant sea bass (''binomial name ''

Stereolepis gigas The giant sea bass (''Stereolepis gigas'') is a fish native to the North Pacific Ocean. Although commonly referred to as a giant sea bass, black sea bass or giant black sea bass, it is actually a wreckfish in the family Polyprionidae rather than ...

)'' is listed as a critically endangered species on the IUCN Red List''.'' The point is used as a landmark for defining marine areas near the island, such as a commercial fishing restriction in the 1960s. It is currently one of the boundaries of the Binnacle Rock to Jewfish Point Area of Special Biological Significance, defined as the of coastline between the two points, and extending out to 300-foot isobath or one

nautical mile A nautical mile is a unit of length used in air, marine, and space navigation, and for the definition of territorial waters. Historically, it was defined as the meridian arc length corresponding to one minute ( of a degree) of latitude. Today ...

(whichever is greater). This marine protected area was established off Catalina in 1974. Per the California State Water Resources Control Board, the designation that a place is an area of special biological significance (ASBS) means that it supports "an unusual variety of aquatic life, and often...unique individual species". Jewfish Point is a popular destination for underwater divers. On land, the site may be reached by what a 1923 botanical survey described as "may be reached through difficult and uncomfortable scrambling about among the rock debris along the shore". Plants observed at Jewfish Point at that time included '' Nicotiana glauca'',

laurel sumac ''Malosma'' is a plant genus which contains only a single species, ''Malosma laurina'', with the common names laurel sumac and lentisco (Spanish).Integrated Taxonomic Information System (2007)''Malosma'' retrieved June 10, 2007. ''Malosma laurin ...

, lemonadeberry, woolly Indian paintbrush, California black sage (then classified as ''Ramona stachyoides''), '' Eriogonum giganteum'', and toyon. An 1950s oceanographic survey reported sandy mud at 48 fathoms, along with many brittle stars, seed shrimp, tubicolous anemones, many shells of ''

Laqueus californicus ''Laqueus'' is a genus of brachiopods belonging to the family Laqueidae. The species of this genus are found in Japan, Northern America. Species Species: *''Laqueus astartaeformis'' *''Laqueus blanfordi ''Laqueus'' is a genus of brachi ...

'', and a number of other types of sea creatures.

References

{{coord, 33.3204, -118.3038, type:landmark_region:US-CA, format=dms, display=title Headlands of California Landforms of Los Angeles County, California Santa Catalina Island (California) Underwater diving sites in the United States Natural history of the Channel Islands of California

See also

References