enviro propaganda
LBHuntley,
Who do you work for - Environmental Defense or the NMFS? There's really not much difference between the 2, but was just wondering.
Since the recreational TAC was tied directly to the shrimper bycatch issue, the NMFS mandate an 84% reduction reduction in bycatch across the board. Thus, the recreational season went from 6 months, 4 fish limits to the current 54 day, 2 fish limits. The bycatch has been reduced by factors such as hurricanes, bad economy, and low imported shrimp prices - not anything done by the NMFS.
Additionally, the data used to mandate the reduction in bycatch severely underestimated natural mortality of said bycatch. In fact, propaganda from enviro.orgs and the CCA stated that shrimpers were responsible for killing 80% of every year class of snapper due to bycatch. Fact of the matter is that the 0-1 snapper have an extremely high nartural mortality rate (about 90%), so whether or not the snapper are killed in shrimp nets is a moot point - they are going to be eaten most likely anyways.
To claim that the snapper "recovery" is due to reduced shriomping effort is false. To claim that artificial reefs do not enhance snapper populations is equally false. To claim that the NMFS is regulating snapper with viable data is about as bogus as it gets.
Again, as I asked before - post up the link to the paper where Dr. Shipp concluded that reefs merely attracted snapper.
Tom Hilton
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