Fish Traps Coming Back

[PatMyGreen]

When I was at the scoping meeting for the new fisheries amendment, the reauthorization of fish traps was on there for being considered. No one was more irate at this meeting the the commercial fishermen themselves (many of whom used to use them). The members of the council present at the meeting said "yes, its on there because it was submitted, but it has to get voted past the whole council and we haven't met anyone yet that intends to vote for it."

This is an effort by the large longliner owners to keep their boats fishing at all costs. The reaction from the commercial sector itself is completely against this save the dozen or so individuals who own the boats requesting this. Bear in mind that until recently (past 5 years) there weren't even trip limits on the commercial grouper sector and larger vessels with larger fish storage space working on an industrial scale was the trend. These are vessels not captained by the owners but owned by someone as an investment, to whom fish are merely dollars. This is a contrast to the average commercial fisherman but it is also who has the money and the lobbying power. My take on this from the Gulf Council's scoping meeting was that its dead, still born, and only mentioned because they did the leg work to properly submit a proposal for consideration. And yes it would go down this way if someone did the same for fishing with dynamite on the coral reef, provided they navigated the bureaucracy correctly. But it will never pass.


Ironically I have several friends that are biologists for NMFS who have done experiments with the newer modified fish traps that have shown them to be much more selective than anyone thought was possible. Don't shoot the messenger!

 

[Mopar]

I skimmed thru all of these posts and have a couple of questions. I live in TN. and need a patient response because I don't know FL. fishing regulations. I know these traps are bad but would the traps kill the smaller Goliath Grouper that are protected? I know a huge one would not get in a trap. Also the turtles could they get in them and drown? These are the two animals I love to see on a dive. One year in Panama City on the Strenghth their was a piece of net that had trapped a turtle. Me and my dive partner I met on the boat cut up the net to free the turtle. The net was to the side of the wreck on a piece of debre of that wreck.

 

[Walt Stearns]

This is really good news

Just like anything with a really foul smell, the proposal to re-introduce fish traps in the Gulf of Mexico by the Southern Offshore Fishing Association as viable alternative to longline gear has been thrown out.

Yesterday, Thursday Febuary 4th, 2010, the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council voted unanimously to end the misguided effort to reintroduce destructive gear.

This coming after executive director of the Southern Offshore Fishing Association Bob Spaeth and Tom Haugen tried to persuade both members of the Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Shareholders Alliance, Gulf Fishermen’s Association, and a contingent of conservation groups and fisheries management veterans who had fought to banish the destructive gear from the Florida Keys and Gulf back in the 1990s that their “new type of trap” would reduce or even eliminate the problems caused by previous types of traps back in December. Most of us attending knew better and were not buying it.

Although the meeting was intended to be a vetting process initiated by environmental groups like the Ocean Conservancy, Oceana and Environmental Defense Fund with commercial longliners to explore the use of fish traps as a trade-off for the removal of equally destructive longline gear which is killing excessive numbers of threatened loggerhead sea turtles was quickly discovered to be nearly as destructive as fishing with dynamite.

As the information on their destructiveness came to light, Ocean Conservancy quickly moved their position to oppose the use of the traps while the Environmental Defense Fund stood in support of several commercial fishing organizations such as the Southern Offshore Fishing Association, Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Shareholders Alliance and the Gulf Fishermen’s Association continued to press for the use of fish traps.

“Substituting one harmful gear for another harmful gear that has already been banned in U.S. waters in the Gulf of Mexico and South Atlantic is completely unacceptable,” said Russell Nelson, CCA’s Gulf Fisheries consultant. “Dr. Roy Crabtree, NOAA regional administrator, noted enforcement officers’ testimony on the extreme difficulty of enforcing any regulations on fish traps and stated that those concerns were very legitimate factors in the Council’s decision.”

So it is to say with great pride that the fish trap issue has died a quick death this week with the Gulf Council doing the right thing in slamming the door on this ill-conceived effort unanimously removing it from Amendment 32 to the gag/red grouper management plan that is going forward this year.

:banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana: