Bad news for commercial fishermen in Cortez this week. New commercial grouper fishing regulations designed to save sea turtles have left some Cortez fishermen out of action.
According to the Anna Maria Sun newspaper, of the dozen grouper boats fishing out of Cortez, five will be able to use longlines under new rules passed by the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council last week.
The new rules are intended to reduce the number of longline boats, which regulators hope will minimize interactions with sea turtles. Longliners typically drop a line with 750 to 1,200 baited hooks on the sea floor for five to 10 miles, and begin retrieving it within an hour.
For boats to qualify for a longline endorsement, the new rules require minimum average annual catches of 40,000 pounds. They also prohibit using more than 750 hooks at a time, with 1,000 maximum on board, and prohibit shallow water grouper fishing from June to August, when turtles are plentiful in the eastern Gulf.
Several fishermen testified at the hearing that they had never encountered a single dead sea turtle on their longlines. Recreational fishermen and environmental groups, often at odds with the commercial industry, also questioned statistics at the hearing.
It seems the fishermen have no choice to but to keep fighting the ban - and hope that the skies on the horizon are brighter than they appear overhead at the moment.
Read the full story here
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