August 1999 -- SeaWatch - The Newsletter of CCA Florida

August 1999 Issue #78

SeaWatch is underwritten by THE ORVIS COMPANY

[Return to the list of SeaWatch publications]

Snook by Susan H. Young

July 1, 1999, marked the official beginning of Florida's new Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Opening to rave reviews by the state’s conservationists and outdoor press, the FWC represents the cutting edge in fish and wildlife management. For the first time in the history of the state, rules regulating marine species will be made by an appointed commission free from conflicts of interest, and not by the Legislature, or with the Governor and Cabinet looking over the manager’s shoulders.

"It’s an important time in the history of conservation in Florida," said Karl Wickstrom, CCA Florida Vice President, and publisher of Florida Sportsman magazine. "Our success achieving passage of the net ban four years ago coupled with creation of a constitutionally-empowered fish and wildlife agency has given Florida a new conservation agenda for the next century."

At the FWC’s initial meeting, held July 7-9, the commissioners selected Allan L. Egbert, Ph.D., former executive director of the Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission, to serve as the new agency’s executive director. In addition Russ Nelson, Ph.D., former executive director of the Marine Fisheries Commission, was retained as head of the new Division of Marine Fisheries within the FWC. The Commissioners also selected Commissioner Julie Morris to serve as Chair and Jamie Adams Jr. to serve as Vice-Chair.

For nearly two decades, marine conservationists longed for an agency that would afford the same level of protection to marine species that was enjoyed by Florida’s freshwater fish and wildlife. The dream became a possibility in 1998 when the Constitutional Revision Commission, at the strong urging of CCA Florida and other conservation interests, put the question of a unified, constitutionally-empowered agency on the statewide ballot.

The dream became a reality on November 3, 1998, when 72 percent of Florida’s voters said yes to the formation of the new commission.

The final step took place with passage of enabling language by the 1999 Legislature that merged the Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission, the Marine Fisheries Commission and the Division of Marine Resources into the new agency.

The 10-member commission, which oversees the 1,754 employees of the new agency, is composed of the five previous members of the Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission and five members of the Marine Fisheries Commission. The number will reduce to seven as various appointed terms run out.

The first marine fisheries action taken by the new Commission was the approval of an emergency rule that will allow the Gulf of Mexico recreational red snapper fishery to remain open in Florida waters through October 31. The National Marine Fisheries Service had previously announced it will close this fishery in Gulf federal waters on August 29.

From August 30 through October 31, fishermen will now be limited to a daily bag limit of two red snapper, no less than 16 inches in total length, harvested from state waters. All recreational harvest of this species in state waters will then be prohibited November 1 - January 1. The Commission also intends to reconsider future management of the red snapper fishery during its October meeting.

Based on the difficulties of properly managing a recreational fishery by quota, and the uncertainty of closing dates, CCA Florida recommendations for the red snapper fishery management have been to repeal the congressional mandatory recreational quota closure provision and instead adopt recreational bag limits and size limits and seasonal closures to achieve the same level of resource protection. The recommended season would run from March or April until October of each year with a bag limit of four fish per person, per day.

Florida has the largest group of salt water anglers in the entire United States, and more than the combined number of anglers in all the other southeastern Atlantic coastal states represented by the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council). Yet for the past two years there was no one on the council to represent these anglers.

Florida’s recreational representation was eliminated in 1997, over the protests of Florida’s conservation community, when the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) appointed a paid lobbyist for the commercial fishing industry. Now that wrong has been righted with the appointment of Edward (Ebbie) LeMaster of Ponte Vedra to the council.

At one point during the NMFS decision-making process it appeared that the LeMaster appointment was in jeopardy. However, calls, letters and faxes from CCA Florida grassroots activists made it clear that Florida’s anglers wanted to see a conservationist appointed to the council.

Currently a vice president on the CCA Florida State Board of Directors, and a member of the Board of Directors of the National Coalition for Marine Conservation, LeMaster has a strong background and substantial experience in marine fisheries management. He is also a trustee of the University of Florida’s Whitney Marine Laboratory.

LeMaster also served four years as a gubernatorial appointee to the Florida Marine Fisheries Commission (MFC) where he demonstrated a strong commitment to marine resource conservation.

He has been an outspoken proponent of conservation-oriented fishery regulations for both commercial and recreational fisheries and he has consistently placed resource protection as the highest priority when making management decisions. He is also very familiar with fisheries rules and regulations, fish stock assessments and fishery management plans and is an avid and longtime recreational fisherman.

In 1999, the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council (Gulf Council) adopted major regulations to protect gag and red grouper in the Gulf of Mexico. The rules, which have been in effect since that time, included an increase in the minimum size limit from twelve to twenty inches, a five-fish recreational bag limit, and a combined red grouper and gag grouper quota on commercial fishers.

The result of those regulations was a 54 percent reduction on recreational gag grouper catch and no reduction in commercial take. The eight-inch increase in minimum size had the largest substantial impact on recreational anglers while having virtually no impact on commercial fishers.

Despite the regulations and the reduction in recreational catch, the gag grouper population has not been restored to a healthy level, and is now designated as a stock that is approaching an overfished state. In fact, recent stock assessments and other information estimate that the species will actually become overfished within two years. Under federal rules, the designation requires the Gulf Council to take action within two years to prevent overfishing from occurring.

In July, after months of debate which included earlier passage of a strong conservation plan that was later withdrawn, the council adopted a new regulation proposal which fails to protect gag grouper spawning aggregations from excessive commercial take while again placing much greater percentage reductions on recreational anglers.

The regulations proposed by the Gulf Council calls for another major increase in minimum size from 20 to 24 inches on all fishers, a one-month (February 15 to March 15) commercial closure, and a 200 square-mile area closure to all fishing. Unfortunately, statistics indicate that the size limit increase will have a major impact on recreational anglers, reducing their catch by 30 to 36 percent; whereas, the size increase and commercial closures will reduce commercial take by only 16 percent.

In addition, most of the commercial industry reduction supposedly comes from the one month closure. However, CCA Florida has repeatedly pointed out that a one month closure will not reduce commercial landings, particularly when grouper gather in easily-targeted spawning aggregations for three or more months every year. The commercial industry will simply shift its effort to either side of the closure period completely eliminating its effectiveness.

During the Gulf Council debate over a one-month versus three-month commercial closure, Florida council member Alex Jernigan asked for any Gulf Council member or National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) staff to identify any past one-month commercial closure in any fishery plan which successfully reduced commercial landings. No one could.

However, a South Atlantic Fishery Management Council member in attendance at the July meeting noted that when the South Atlantic Council closed one of the three amberjack spawning months (April) to commercial harvest, the commercial landings actually went up the following year.

The Gulf Council debate also brought out the issue of fairness in the take reductions of the recreational and commercial sectors. CCA Florida’s position has always been that since the previous regulations reduced recreational landings by 54 percent while commercial industry landings remained the same, any new regulations should reflect a greater reduction in commercial harvest. Nevertheless, the majority of the Gulf Council and the NMFS staff gave absolutely no consideration to that fact in crafting and passing the new reductions.

At one point in the debate, Bill Hogarth, the new NMFS Southeastern Regional Director, was asked to comment on the fairness of a proposal which would have closed commercial take for three months, instead of one, and increased the size limit to 24 inches on both groups. He stated that the three month closure proposal would be "fair and equitable" because it would reduce take on both groups by 30 percent. Hogarth later voted for only a one-month commercial closure.

The Gulf Council also voted to prohibit fishing year-round in approximately 200 square miles offshore to try to protect spawning male grouper. However, less than 2 percent of reported commercial catches actually occur in the selected area. In addition, there is not now, nor is there likely to be in the future, enough state or federal fisheries law enforcement resources to effectively enforce a closed area more than 100 miles offshore.

Bottom line on the Gulf Council’s action -- the commercial industry gets the mine and the resource, and recreational anglers get the shaft.

CCA Florida also indicated that the state of Florida has a serious disadvantage with regards to representation on the Gulf Council. Florida has 47 percent of the coastline along the Gulf of Mexico, Mississippi and Alabama together make up 6 percent of the coast. Florida is the origin of 24 percent of the Gulf commercial fisheries economic value while Mississippi and Alabama account for a total of only 11 percent. Florida also produces 58 percent of the total dollar value of saltwater recreational fisheries in the Gulf while Mississippi and Alabama together produce only 7 percent. However, representatives from Mississippi and Alabama control 38 percent of the Gulf Council while Florida has only 25 percent.

The inequity of representation became even more apparent in the process of developing the management plan for gag grouper.

There is, of course, no disputing the evidence that gag grouper is overwhelmingly a Florida fishery. Since 1990, Florida landings have accounted for 97 percent of the recreational landings and 94 percent of the commercial landings in the Gulf of Mexico. And in fact, during the rules debate, three of the four Florida Gulf Council members strongly supported the three-month commercial closure during the spawning aggregation period. Nevertheless, their votes were completely negated by all six Mississippi and Alabama members who don’t even have a gag grouper fishery off of their states.

Despite the new gag grouper rule proposal, which must be approved by the National Marine Fishery Service before going into effect, Gulf of Mexico grouper management issues are far from resolved. A new stock assessment on red grouper, another popular recreational species found more in the southern portions of the Gulf, indicates that they are in worse condition than gag grouper. In addition, the recent actions by the Gulf Council still don’t provide any effective measures to control excessive commercial take on spawning aggregations of gag grouper.

The obvious outcome -- the Gulf Council will again have to readdress gag and red grouper management in the near future.

Hard as it may be to believe, commercial fishing interests in Wakulla County have filed another lawsuit in an attempt to reintroduce gill nets into the state’s inshore waters. The suit is asking the courts to rule that a 500-square-foot net can have stretched mesh of any size needed to target a certain size of fish.

The commercial fishermen argue that the Marine Fisheries Commission’s (MFC) rule defining gill nets as any net with mesh larger than two inches actually causes the gilling of juvenile fish while letting the larger fish to escape. This problem would be solved if they could only be allowed to gill the larger fish.

The suit also argues that the MFC’s definition of a gill net directly affects groups of fishermen such as women, the elderly, and disabled who are unable to use castnets and are therefore denied equal protection under the law. The netters are also asking Governor Bush to request a Supreme Court hearing on the case instead of following the usual appeal process.

Two similar lawsuits filed by the same commercial interests were turned back by the First District Court of Appeals in Tallahassee earlier this year. In those suits the courts upheld a ruling by a state administrative hearing officer that the MFC had acted within its authority in passing laws implementing the constitutional netting restrictions.

The rule being challenged had been passed in 1996 to eliminate confusion in the question of what actually constitutes a gill net. It stated that seine nets less than 500 square feet, which are allowed under the constitution, must have a mesh size of no more than two inches throughout the net.

In addition to challenging the MFC’s authority, the netters had tried to make the point that a 2-inch mesh seine net was not commercially viable. Although the judges recognized that the 2-inch mesh seine might not be commercially viable, they pointed out that the commercial viability of the net being requested for use was attributed solely to the fact that it gilled fish. They further stated that "A net disallowed by the net ban amendment cannot lawfully be used, whatever its commercial viability."

Florida's natural resources lost a great friend of July 13 with the passing of Scott Jerrems of Sarasota. Jerrems, age 52, died of a heart attack at his home.

Scott was an original board member of CCA Florida and FCA before that. His steady presence and caring helped to guide the organization through its growth to its current prominence. Said Ted Forsgren, "No one was more enthusiastic or energetic than he was on all our advocacy campaigns. We will miss him."

Scott’s unselfish efforts were especially important during the struggle to protect redfish, to pass the Save our Sealife Amendment, and to prevent the introduction of fish trawls into Florida waters. When support was needed in Tallahassee, Scott was there; when petitions had to be collected, Scott was there; and when someone was needed to start and energize the Sarasota chapter, Scott stepped in.

Said Bud Kilgore, a longtime friend of Jerrems, "All of us owe Scott a word of gratitude and appreciation for all that he has done for our fisheries and other environmental and conservation efforts."

"Florida’s kids will never know what he did for them," said longtime friend Pete Turner in a memorial article by Jerry Hill in the Bradenton Herald.

In another memorial article written by Steve Gibson, outdoor writer with the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Steve wrote, "Scott Jerrems wasn’t just a conservationist. He was the consummate conservationist. . . He was a person who loved the great outdoors and knew, almost by instinct, what needed to be done. . . Jerrems was a fun-loving guy who delighted in paddling his kayak on Sarasota Bay and casting for snook, redfish and spotted seatrout. . . He loved fishing. He loved the water. He loved the people."

John Koeck, a friend who served with Jerrems on the CCA Board said, "Where fish were concerned, Scott was one of the great ones. He’d take the hooks off lures and go fishing with them just to see the fish drawn to the lure. He was always stepping overboard in the shallows and scooping up a bit of the bay bottom to share with others."

Scott was a real estate agent. He was born on Dec. 8, 1947, in Chicago, and grew up in Bradenton. He is survived by his wife of 29 years, Jenny; and brothers Alec of Sarasota, Warren of Colorado and Donald of North Carolina; and a sister, Susan Begat of New Orleans.

Donations may be made to the Scott Jerrems Memorial Fund, in care of the Community Foundation of Sarasota County, Inc., P.O. Box 49587, Sarasota, FL 34230.

As part of its on-going reorganization, CCA Florida welcomes three new staff members to the Orlando business office.

Jon Flint, the organization’s new general manager brings to CCA a wealth of experience from a career working in fund-raising and higher education. Jon graduated from the University of Pittsburgh, and moved to Orlando from Pittsburgh six years ago to work with the University of Central Florida Foundation.

"I’ve been aware of CCA Florida, its base of volunteers, and its effectiveness in protecting the marine fisheries of the state for a long time," said Flint. "Conserving those resources is something that I strongly believe in." Flint is the father of a six year old son and eight year old daughter. AI want to help make sure the resources are there for them and their children."

Marcia Yenor, the new office manager for the Orlando business office, is a native Floridian from nearby Clermont. She attended Florida Southern College and joins CCAF after four years as an office manager with the University of Alaska. She has a son and two grandchildren also living in Florida.

Marcia brings to CCA a strong interest in conservation, fueled in-part by her experiences in Alaska. "I was frustrated there, they have a largely untouched state and they don’t appreciate it. Here we’ve lost so much, and have so much work to do." Besides, she adds, "It’s a great place to work."

Stephanie Rumin is CCA Florida’s new banquet coordinator. She is from Ft. Lauderdale, and a graduate of the University of Florida where she earned a bachelor’s degree in recreation and tourism.

Stephanie is an avid angler, who grew up fishing for snapper and grouper in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. "Having studied tourism and recreation, and with a love for fishing, I couldn’t have found a better job."

As banquet coordinator, Stephanie works with CCA Florida assistant directors and chapter committees to help organize successful membership and fundraising events.

"The part of my job I like the most is the chance to travel and meet the volunteer members of the state chapters. Talking to members around the state has helped me truly appreciate CCAF’s conservation successes."

We are deeply appreciative of Mercury Marine for their continued support of CCA Florida conservation initiatives. Mercury donates two motors for every CCA Florida banquet. Click here to see our 1999 Fall Banquet Schedule.