CCA FLORIDA GRASSROOTS ALERT!
_______________________

NEW RESEARCH REVEALS
BOTTOM LONGLINE GEAR IS KILLING LARGE NUMBERS OF ENDANGERED SEA TURTLES!

ACT NOW! SEND YOUR EMAIL COMMENTS TO FEDERAL FISHERIES COUNCIL URGING EMERGENCY RULE TO PROHIBIT COMMERCIAL BOTTOM LONGLINE GEAR!
_______________________

CCA Florida strongly recommends that the Gulf Council and National Marine Fisheries Service take emergency action to prohibit bottom longline gear in the Gulf of Mexico off of Florida.

CCA FLORIDA COMMENTS

1. HUGE BY KILL OF ENDANGERED SEA TURTLES – Recent research has revealed that bottom longline gear for reef fish, along with longline gear set for sharks, is taking much larger numbers of endangered loggerhead and other sea turtles than anticipated by the 2005 Biological Opinion required by the Endangered Species Act. The information extrapolated from the recent survey indicates 974 interactions of endangered sea turtles and bottom longline gear with 433 turtles released. 325 released dead and 216 status unknown. The huge loss of sea turtles each year to bottom longline gear is completely unacceptable and action must be taken immediately.
   
   

2. LARGE SCALE AND HIGH VOLUME TAKE BY LONGLINE GEAR - CCA and CCA Florida have been concerned over the use of bottom longline gear in the Gulf of Mexico reef fish fishery for well over a decade. The high volume, industrial level take greatly inhibits the ability to achieve resource protection goals while maintaining a viable recreational fishery and commercial hook and line fishery. During a lawsuit in 2005, information was obtained documenting that just 25 longline boats took more red grouper than all the recreational fishers in the entire Gulf of Mexico.
   
   

3. BY KILL AND WASTE OF RED SNAPPER – Bottom longlines are already prohibited out to 50 fathoms in all the rest of the Gulf from Cape San Blas in the Florida Panhandle west through all the Gulf states. One of the main reasons for prohibiting bottom longlines off of the rest of the Gulf states and the Florida Panhandle was to keep longline gear away from spawning concentrations of red snapper. However, red snapper populations are recovering and expanding their populations to all of Florida’s Gulf coast and into the range of the longline boats. Recent testimony has highlighted the serious by kill of red snapper. There may be as much as one million pounds of red snapper discarded dead annually because the longline boats do not have, or choose not to purchase, red snapper IFQ quota shares that are required to land the fish.