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SEAWATCH July 2002 Continued Issue #91

Table of Contents:

• 2002 Law Enforcement Incident Review
  
• Third Annual Mangrove Festival
• California Anglers Slow Down Closures (MPAs)
• REPORT: No-Take MPAs Ineffective as Fishery Management Tool
• No-Fishing Zones May be Planned for Biscayne National Park
  
• Page One Articles
  • FWC Task Force Sweeps Illegal Nets From the Waters of Franklin and Wakulla Counties
  • Gulf Council Backs Off Four-Month Gag Grouper Closure
    
  • Florida Legislative Conservation Awards for 2002
  • Mullet Carcasses Discarded During Roe Season
    
  • Science on Safe Havens as Manatee Birthing Areas

2002 Law Enforcement Incident Review

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has begun issuing weekly reports on law enforcement activities statewide. Following are net ban enforcement-related excerpts from reports filed during the first six months of this year.

Three Wakulla County men were arrested in January and charged with major netting violations after officers watched them working gillnets in the lower Aucilla River. The officers found several nets that totaled more than 4,000 square feet, 486 mullet and seven large spotted seatrout.

In February, officers working near Apalachicola Bay in Franklin County could see boats working with spotlights in the area. The officers walked out on a new public dock and as they were standing there, a vessel came in and struck the dock with 300 yards of monofilament net. Two subjects were arrested and 356 pounds of mullet, five seatrout, and the net were seized.

In March, officers located the shrimp boat “Sand Island” approximately 2.5 miles from shore off Indian Pass in Franklin County. The vessel was found to be towing four large trawls, 2,800 square feet each, and a try net.

In March, officers responded to a complaint of an abandoned gillnet just offshore in Martin County. Approximately 200 yards of net were recovered and brought to shore, where the fish were removed. The net contained pompano, jack, ladyfish, bluefish, bonefish, sharks and crabs.

In April an officer was off-duty having dinner with her family in a restaurant overlooking the St. Lucie River in Stuart when she observed a vessel towing a smaller vessel approach her location. As she continued to watch, the two men in the vessels began to deploy some type of floating net that obviously exceeded 500 feet in length. The officer called the West Palm Beach Office to request assistance, then waded out to the fishermen. She was able to walk up to the fishermen before they realized she was there because they were concentrating on watching for the law coming from the other direction. The subjects had a total of six nets tied together.

In April, FWC officers located and seized 8,000 feet of gillnet hidden in the mangroves in Collier County. The net was hidden in a small vessel, camouflaged and half sunk in the mangroves near Naples Bay and The Intracoastal Waterway.

In May, officers in Bay County observed a commercial net boat operating off Panama City Beach looking for baitfish. They had received reports and previously observed the vessel strike a large seine net in the area. A check of the local fish house disclosed that large quantities of bait had been sold from the boat. While the nets were still in the water, the officers boarded the vessel and video taped the operation with the two nets linked together. The captain was cited under Article X and the nets and catch were impounded.

A week-long detail in Collier County in May concluded with the seizure of 1,200 yards of gillnet and one 25-foot net boat. Charges are pending on fleeing and eluding, and possession of a vessel with removed H.I.N. The officers arrested one man on a warrant and two other men on net violations.

Officers working in Franklin County in May located a truck and trailer belonging to a known net violator at a boat ramp. The officers took up a position for surveillance; around 5 a.m. they heard a vessel coming up the channel to the ramp. The vessel contained a monofilament trammel net, a monofilament gillnet, and 468 pounds of mullet. An earlier inspection that same month of a vessel revealed that the same operator was in possession of and had been using a net in violation of Article X. Approximately 40 pounds of miscellaneous fish along with two redfish had been caught with the 4,000-square-foot net.

In another Franklin County case in May an officer received a call of net boats working around Turkey Point. Officers proceeded to the area and located one net boat with two well-known violators on board. There were just a few mullet in the cooler and no fishing gear of any type on the vessel. The officers retraced the direction from which they saw the vessel come and located approximately 400 yards of monofilament net in the water.

In Martin County in May, officers conducted a detail targeting suspected illegal seine netting on the North Fork of the St. Lucie River in Stuart. An unmarked flats boat was used. Shortly after arrival, a group of seine net fishermen were spotted using a net exceeding 500 square feet. A 686-foot-long seine net, 290 pounds of sheepshead, 30 pounds of large pompano and 16 pounds of mullet were seized in this case. The same subjects had been observed a month earlier disconnecting their nets while an officer was checking another group of illegal seine net fishermen. They also were warned about having their nets connected back in April when their abandoned net was seized by an officer. A recent check of trip tickets revealed one of these three subjects had sold $1,700 worth of pompano in a four-day period.

An investigator conducted a net-limitation detail utilizing the Commission aircraft in May in Taylor County. A vessel was located engaged in commercial fishing and was inspected. The occupant was identified as a habitual violator and has had his commercial fishing privileges revoked for life. He was issued a citation for the violation and released. Later that day it was learned that the subject had an active warrant in Taylor County for a commercial fishing violation that occurred in November 2001. Returning to the area approximately two hours later, the officers again observed the man engaged in commercial fishing. This time he was arrested on the warrant, additionally charged with the commercial fishing violation and taken to jail.

In June, during a net limitation enforcement detail in Charlotte County, FWC officers were guided by an FWC helicopter pilot to two net boats in the North Bull Bay area. Inspection of the vessels revealed one of them had freshly fished oversized seines. The vessels were not in an area consistent with direct transit to federal waters. The officers charged one subject with failure to transit directly and seized the nets, which were greater than 1,000 square feet of mesh area. The nets were also constructed in a peculiar manner where the meshes were greatly bunched approximately one foot down from the cork line and approximately one foot up from the lead line. Using only the mesh count at the cork line and lead line would have made the nets only slightly oversized.

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California Anglers Slow Down Closures

Florida isn’t the only state facing the challenge of so-called marine protected areas (MPAs).

by Rick Farren, Communications Director

California recreational anglers recently faced down a multi-front effort to close huge areas of that state’s inshore waters. The efforts are being supported by many of the same national environmental organizations that have called for large closed areas off Florida.

One attempt to close off the public is taking place in the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary, where sanctuary managers and the California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) decided to create marine reserves in 30 to 50 percent of the sanctuary as a fishery management tool.

Another attempt began with the passage of an act by California’s legislature that was supposed to be used to improve the management of an existing array of 104 small marine protected areas of state waters (about one-tenth or 1 percent). The DFG, however, decided that the best way to do that was to close an additional 10 percent of the Northern California coastal waters and 15 percent of the coastal waters in Southern California.

A third attempt came as part of DFG fishery management plans for 19 named species of marine fish that included closing another 10 and 15 percent of state waters.

Out of frustration, the United Anglers of Southern California (UASC) launched a petition campaign and quickly gathered more than 50,000 signatures in opposition to the massive closures. In January, the protest and petition campaign paid off when the DFG “wiped the maps clean” and declared they were starting over on the closures outside the sanctuary.

Study Backs Anglers Position
While the state officials looked for a new tack in their efforts to create no-fishing zones, the American Sportfishing Association and the UASC had time to compile a report which clearly demonstrated that California officials have underestimated the impact of the proposed regulations in the Channel Islands Marine Sanctuary by 90 percent. According to the report, under the most restrictive option being proposed, California would lose as many as 2,700 jobs and $13 million in tax revenues. Figures previously being touted by sanctuary managers didn’t take into account the actual purchase of equipment such as fishing tackle and boats.

Report: No-Take MPAs Ineffective as Fishery Management Tool

by Rick Farren

Traditional regulations such as size limits, catch limits and seasons work best for 98 percent of species.
According to a report released in April by Dr. Robert Shipp, chair of the marine sciences department at the University of South Alabama, no-take marine protected areas (MPAs) are a poor fishery management tool.

Shipp examined over 350 fish stocks and found that MPAs offer no fishery management benefit for 98 percent of them. Stated the report, “As a tool for fisheries management, where the goal is maximum sustainable yield, no-take MPAs are generally not as effective as traditional management measures such as size limits, catch limits and seasons.”

According to Shipp, no-take MPAs don’t work because fish move. Of the many fish species Shipp examined, nearly all ranged over large distances, greater than any proposed no-fishing zone. As fish range outside of the restricted area, they become available to catch and the benefits of the closure disappear.

Countering a popular misconception regarding MPAs, Shipp also points out that the fishery management benefits of the so-called “spillover” effect don’t exist. “The number of fish that spillover from a reserve is always going to be less than that available from a well-managed fishery,” says Shipp. “It’s wrong to say that commercial and recreational anglers are going to benefit by catching more, larger fish as a result of an MPA because they won’t.”

Further, Shipp points out that many species don’t need the severe restrictions put in place by no-take MPAs. According to the National Marine Fisheries Service, 8 percent of marine fish are overfished. “If a fish stock is well managed and healthy, then the need for a no-take MPA is nil.”

“In most cases, traditional measures are a much more effective method for managing a fishery, even an overfished one,” said Shipp. Anglers are governed by rules and regulations that determine minimum size requirements, strict catch limits and even seasonal closures.

A complete copy of the report, "No-Take Marine Protected Areas As A Fishery Management Tool, A Pragmatic Perspective," can be found at the FishAmerica Foundation web site.

No-Fishing Zones May be Planned for Biscayne National Park

The managers of Biscayne National Park (BNP) held a series of workshops in May to obtain public comments on a new fisheries management plan for the park.

According to the BNP staff, “The plan will identify the current status of the fishery, describe future desired conditions, develop fisheries management objectives and present a range of alternatives that will directly contribute to the long-term protection, perpetuation and sustainability of the park’s marine resources and visitor use of those resources.”

However, the marine conservation community is aware that the BNP staff is considering establishing closed areas in the park in which all fishing would be prohibited. This action is being considered despite the very successful fisheries management approach that has long been followed in nearby Everglades National Park. ENP’s excellent fishing and healthy stocks of gamefish have been achieved without closing any large areas to anglers and boaters.

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