Red abalone found in the possession of an alleged poacher at Ocean Cove on the Sonoma Coast, Nov. 7, 2025 (Courtesy of Cal. Dept. of Fish and Wildlife)
A suspected poacher accused of violating California’s eight-year-old ban on abalone harvest along the Sonoma Coast appeared in court in Santa Rosa Friday morning.
In a brief appearance before Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Kristine Burk, Andrii Chmukh, 34, asked to be provided with a Ukrainian language interpreter.
Judge Burk granted the request, and scheduled Chmukh’s next appearance for Jan. 5.
Chmukh, a resident of Citrus Heights in Sacramento County, was apprehended the night of Nov. 7, after California Fish and Wildlife officers spotted moving lights at Ocean Cove, just south of Salt Point State Park — “the kind of lights that usually mean someone is doing more than sightseeing,” according to a report posted by the state agency on social media.
Surveilling from a distance, officers then observed “several individuals” moving through the cove “and placing items into containers.”
Ocean Cove was experiencing a negative tide that evening, meaning the sea level was lower than even a normal low tide, creating tide pools and exposing other features that are usually submerged.
As the group made its way back to the access road above the cove, “officers positioned themselves out of sight and waited,” the post recounted.
They apprehended Chmukh, who was carrying a bag containing 15 poached red abalone, according to the Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Officers made no additional arrests that night at Ocean Cove. Chmukh was transported to the county jail, where he was booked on suspicion of taking and possessing abalone with intent to sell.
It has been illegal to harvest red abalone in California since 2018, when the state Fish and Game Commission voted to suspend the harvest of the imperiled mollusks, coveted for their meat, which is considered a delicacy, and their arresting mother of pearl shells.
Handing down that closure, commissioners cited drastically declining stocks of abalone, and the collapse of the bull kelp forest which sustains them, “creating starvation conditions for herbivores” like abalone and sea urchins, according to a Fish and Wildlife report.
“We are actively enforcing that,” said Krysten Kellum, a Fish and Wildlife spokesperson. “Poaching must stop, to allow California’s abalone populations to recover.”
To support that recovery, the Fish and Game Commission will consider a 10-year extension of the closure in the regulated sport harvest, until 2036, at its meetings Dec.10 and 11.
Before the moratorium, the Sonoma and Mendocino coasts long accounted for the bulk of the state’s abalone harvest, a prized seasonal rite among hardy divers and pickers and a key revenue stream for businesses catering to those visitors.
As of Friday, prosecutors hadn’t determined what Chmukh will be charged with, because they’re still waiting for reports from Fish and Wildlife officers, explained Assistant District Attorney Brian Staebell.
“We spoke with them and they are still finishing their investigation,” said Staebell. “I don’t have a timeframe for when that will be completed.”
Chmukh chose to not answer a reporter’s questions as he left the courtroom Friday morning. The 15 abalone found in his possession, according to authorities, would represent close to the annual bag limit of 18 for licensed divers and pickers when the fishery was last open in 2017.
In 2020, a Santa Rosa man was fined $40,000 and stripped of his sportfishing license after investigators found 80 abalone at his home.
In the press release announcing those penalties, the Sonoma County District Attorney’s office explained that possession of 12 abalone “creates a presumption of possession for commercial purposes that an individual may then seek to overcome with evidence of lawful take.”
You can reach Staff Writer Austin Murphy at austin.murphy@pressdemocrat.com or on Twitter @ausmurph88.
Originally published at Austin Murphy