Here are the new shark fishing regulations for the State of Florida.As a barometer for the sport fishing industry the State of Florida is making improvements to shark fisheries.
■ New additions to the prohibited species list are sandbar, silky and Caribbean sharpnose sharks.
■ Sharks must be landed whole. This means filleting and removing heads, fins, and tails of sharks at sea is not allowed. Gutting and bleeding of sharks at sea is allowed to preserve the meat.
■ There is no minimum size limit for Atlantic sharpnose sharks, blacknose sharks, blacktip sharks, bonnethead sharks, finetooth sharks, and smooth dogfish, all other sharks must be at least 54 inches long (fork length) to harvest or possess.
■ Sharks may be harvested with hook and line gear only. Additionally, snatching and use of multiple (e.g. treble) hooks with natural baits is not allowed.
■ There is a bag limit of one shark per person per day and a maximum of 2 sharks per vessel per day.
■ Smooth dogfish and the Florida smoothhound are now included in the shark regulations. For a complete list of regulated sharks please visit MyFWC.com. Many sharks are difficult to identify and it is up to anglers to learn how to properly identify the sharks they harvest.
Please visit MyFWC.com to view shark identification information and other management information.
2 comments:
Do you really believe Florida is the answer? You know as well as I do, that this means nothing.
Ethan (do with it what you will)
I am not so sure Ethan.
Regulations are part of the building blocks of conservation. I agree that many regs are insane, watered down and useless attempts at green washing.
Years ago I spent a summer running commercial long lines, I was 22. When the captain started cutting the swim bladders of 1000 pound blue marlin and dumping them back over the side I was outraged.
Regulations.
Some well meaning conservation folks got the fisheries laws changed, but in a classic last minute swap out the law was changed to not allowing "blue marlin back to port for commercial sale."
To this day thousands of blue marlin are dumped at sea.
That's the dark side of regulations, conservation folks need to be aware of this. Too often they are unaware or just in it for the "quick media get."
As for FL and these regs, it's a start, full of holes, but a start.
It is also why our primary focus is on back end conservation like the Shark Free Marinas Initiative.
If you do not have to involve local or state gov the better, rarely does anything solid and tagible come from those efforts there is always a backdoor, or lack of enforcement.
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