FloridaToday.com
Snapper fishing ban has angry anglers seeing red
Fishermen furious over call; council reduces affected area
By Jim Waymer
June 10, 2010
http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/201006100108/NEWS01/6100312
ORLANDO — Despite angry calls
from fishermen about bad science and ruined livelihoods, fishery managers went
ahead Wednesday with a long-term ban on red snapper fishing.
By a 9-4
vote, the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council made permanent an interim
ban that was set to expire Dec. 5.
The council
compromised -- a little -- shrinking the area affected from 6,161 square miles
off Florida -- from near Melbourne to Georgia -- to 4,827 square miles. The ban
covers depths of 98 to 240 feet.
Originally,
officials had proposed closing off as much as 10,300 square miles from Florida
to South Carolina.
Several
hundred anglers blasted the plan Tuesday night, the last chance before the vote
at the Renaissance Orlando Airport Hotel. A few dozen returned for Wednesday's
vote.
The council
provided
some hope for fishermen, however, with several members
saying the area closed to snapper fishing could get smaller or otherwise
revised if a new assessment of the fish finds a much-improved outlook.
The council
will review that assessment and the red snapper rules at its Dec. 5-10 meeting in North Carolina.
"I'm
disappointed that the council didn't postpone their decision until they had the
new and vital information," said Brock Anderson, who runs Bottom
Dollar fishing charter out of Port Canaveral.
Council
members said the ban was necessary because federal law -- the Magnuson-Stevens
Act -- dictates that plans must be put in place within
a year of any species being deemed "overfished." A report in February
2008 did that for red snapper.
The council
also plans a long-term ban on commercial and recreational fishing for all 73
managed snapper and grouper species, including common fish such as sheepshead. They want to prevent people fishing for those
from accidentally catching and killing red snapper.
The ban
makes those species off limits within federal waters -- about 3.45 miles from
shore and extending out about 230 miles -- from Florida to the Carolinas.
Plan to rebuild
Council
members wrangled over what percentage of fishermen
will comply with the red snapper ban and how much the catch should be reduced.
Wednesday's vote also includes a plan for
how to rebuild the red snapper stock.
George Geiger, a council member and fly fisherman from Sebastian, suggested they take a conservative
approach, in case the next stock assessment isn't as "rosy" as
fishermen hope.
"We
have actionable science that mandates that we move forward," Geiger said.
Based
on that assessment, federal biologists say an 83 percent reduction in the red
snapper catch is needed to end overfishing. But the council voted Wednesday to reduce the catch by 76
percent.
Geiger
called the change "irresponsible" and "not preparing for the
worst case."
Seafood
sellers say they'll have to rely on red snapper from the Gulf of Mexico,
as well as imported snapper and grouper, likely from Mexico.
"Disappointed,"
said John Polston, who runs King's Seafood in Port
Orange and owns a house on Merritt Island, after Wednesday's vote. "There
was no need to enact a closure."
Fishermen say biologists
overestimate past red-snapper population stocks and the number of
older fish killed in recent years.
Federal
biologists will fish this summer for red snapper off the Continental Shelf to
test anglers' assertions that the larger, more reproductive
fish stay in deeper water with stronger currents, where they're much less
susceptible to fishing pressure.
Instead
of closing off areas, fishermen want to create more
artificial reefs to lure more bottom fish.
David
Heil, a Winter Park attorney representing the Recreational
Fishing Alliance, plans to attack the ban and the science behind it in federal
court in Jacksonville.
"Our
calls for the council to wait until the new data was available fell on
deaf ears," he said.
Contact Waymer
at 242-3663 or jwaymer@floridatoday.com.