What is the CCA on about now?
In a grandstand move apparently aimed at raising a few more dollars more than accomplishing anything of any good to anyone involved, the CCA has filed suit to block the implementation of Amendment 29, the grouper fishery IFQ issue.
With barely even a passing nod at anything factual, the CCA has been whipping its support base into a frenzy, characterizing catch share regulation as a huge giveaway which will allocate percentage shares of the fishery directly to the commercial sector with no consideration for the recreational sector. They headline their latest press release with this disingenous but nicely dramatic statement:
“Fundamentally flawed catch share program a threat to angling”
CCA have already made it quite clear in their “Grouper Grab” effort that they won’t be happy until they have ALL of the fishery allocated to the few who can afford either the expense or the time to go catch important food resources for “fun” and recreation. They’ve made it clear that they have no respect for the average consumer of fresh fish, who doesn’t want to have to go 40 or 50 miles offshore to catch his next grouper dinner. Now, they are making it clear that they have no respect for due process and are attempting to stop the end result of years of planning and public meetings by filing a last minute dramatic but frivolous lawsuit to block something that is not going to do what they claim it will do.
Read that part once more: The coming IFQ (or catch share program) will NOT DO WHAT CCA CLAIMS IT WILL DO. Any attempt by the CCA to gather donations to help them with this lawsuit and help them with this cause should be treated exactly like what it is, fraud.
This GOM Reef Fish IFQ program, like every other one that I’m aware of, allocates the already existing commercial allocation amongst the already existing commercial fishermen. It takes absolutely NOTHING from the recreational fishermen, and in fact a bone of contention with commercial fishermen is that the recreational and commercial allocations are not set in stone. Nothing will prevent the NMFS from adjusting the recreational/commercial allocations in the future. An individual catch share does not give the fishermen the right to catch a specific poundage of fish, it rather gives each participating commercial fisherman a percentage of whatever the commercial Total Allowable Catch for each year happens to be.
Given that, why all the fuss from the CCA at this point?
Could it be that this is simply a good fund raising point as well as a bit more publicity for them?
What are their own proposals to manage the resource? Seems to be take it all away from the commercial fishery, give it all to the recreational, and don’t even think about giving the recreational sector any sort of TAC or limits.
“One of the easier positions we have dealt with involves hard quotas for the recreational fishery – we unanimously oppose them. “
CCA on their website
