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DANA POINT — Sworn to serve and protect, Sheriff’s Deputy Russ Chilton never figured that pledge would extend to mussels, crabs and starfish. 

Along Orange County’s coastal communities, deputies armed with citation books have begun an unusual enforcement program to protect tide pools from poachers and casual beachgoers. 

The popularity of tide pools among those collecting shells, rocks and sealife has threatened the very diversity that makes them an attraction. State law prohibits removing any object from tide pools and beaches in protected refuges, and marine officials fear that if the law isn’t enforced the tide pool colonies could disappear. 

“If people take the shells and animals out of the tide pools, we not only lose the tidewater organisms, we lose the bigger life forms that feed on them,” said Jon Lewengrub, marine life refuge manager at the Ocean Institute. “What’s at stake here is the future of the coast.” 

The Dana Point branch of the sheriff’s department was the first to begin monitoring the pools of water, which are left behind on beaches during low tides. The pools – full of small shellfish and other marine organisms – serve as feeding grounds for marine scavengers, such as birds, seals, shrimp and lobster. 

The Ocean Institute, a marine research facility based in the city, trained the officers in identifying and handling pool organisms. 

“Originally, I didn’t have any knowledge that we had any tide pools here,” said Chilton, who helped create the department’s tide-pool patrol policy. “Overnight, I had to learn about the shells, the animals, the rocks.” 

With nothing else like it in California, Orange County’s program is drawing the attention of coastal agencies and other counties. The National Marine Fisheries Service and the California Coastal Commission believe it may be the first program in the country to use local authorities to patrol tide pools. 

The county Sheriff’s Department began putting the tide pool patrol policy together in late January, at the urging of the Orange County Coastal Coalition, an agency made up of public and private coastal agencies. It acted after a report by California State University, Fullerton, found that many of the state’s protected tide pools were threatened. 

The program includes daily patrols at high and low tides, when the pools are at their most vulnerable to beachcombers and scuba divers. 

If caught with marine life, violators face fines of $50 to $1,000 and up to a year in jail, said Deputy District Attorney Michael J. Hernandez. 

Since deputies began full-time patrols in July, Hernandez has prosecuted 20 cases, ranging from unlawfully removing sea creatures to possession of fishing equipment on protected land. Nearly all those involved paid fines; no jail sentences were handed down. 

The primary target has been commercial poachers — scuba divers with spears and buckets. However, anybody caught removing items from protected tide pools can be cited. 

“If you have a family down there and they’re collecting a few seashells, we’re going to give a warning and make them aware it’s a refuge and that they can’t remove anything — not rocks or seashells or anything,” Chilton said. 

Deputies recently caught a man removing 76 mussels from the Dana Point refuge, posted with “No Take Zone” signs. He told authorities he planned to eat them. 

Rather than take the mussels as evidence, deputies took pictures of the contraband and returned the creatures to the sea. 

“If we lock it up as evidence,” Chilton said, “it does nobody any good.” 

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On the Net: 

Ocean Institute guide to tide pools: http://ocean-institute.org/teach-opp/teach-tidepool-guide.html