An Issue We Can’t Afford To Ignore
The Gulf Council and National Marine Fisheries are beginning to seriously look at another “issue” they have with bottom longliners. They are making noise about closing the fishery or instituting more senseless regulation, citing undocumented and, I believe, hugely exaggerated numbers of loggerheads supposedly killed by bottom longlines. They appear to be absolutely willing to begin to regulate what bait we can or can’t use and even shut down the fishery completely based on these figures and on information gathered in totally unrelated fisheries. We need to watch this situation and take it very seriously. Elizabeth Griffin, a representative of The Oceana organization, yet another extremely well funded organization financed by the Pew Trusts, recently told the Gulf Council that without full observer coverage, something just not economically feasible in the grouper fishery, they “should shut down fishing.” Ms. Griffin is not going to lose interest, go away or suddenly not be able to afford to attend the next council meeting and the one after that and the one after that. We need to speak up and speak up soon.
There are a couple of articles linked from the main menu at the top of the S.O.F.A. site under “Fishery News >> News From Other Sources” that you really should read and take to heart.
Very scary and worrisome stuff.
