Tuesday, February 9, 2010

New Jersey Shark Conservation Window

New Jersey has a political shark mess on it's hands, and an open window for shark conservation groups who are looking for a way to close shark tournaments in the region.

We covered this unlikely turn of events last month.

Shark fishing interests in New Jersey are applying pressure to government agencies to sign bills into law enacting new compliance standards for shark fisheries off the New Jersey coastlines.

If these bills are not signed, the entire 2010 shark fishery will be put on hold, a win for conservation.

What is not happening at this time are any efforts by shark conservation folks (large coordinated and vocal groups) to stall these unsigned bills or even demand status reviews that might slow the signing process down.

A rare window of shark conservation opportunity, and the clock is running.

Any shark conservation takers out there?

2 comments:

El Tiburon said...

A damn fine post amigos! If only a conservation group could get "The Situation" as a spokesman for the New Jersey Shark conservation movement...

Horizon Charters Guadalupe Cage Diving said...

Thanks Tib,

This is a rare window to actually get something big done. All anyone has to do is provide enough bandwidth to slow the process down for this year, and ask for complete reviews of the laws for the next three years.

We're too small a footprint to make any changes, this has to come from a group or groups who have large mailing lists and Facebook footprints.

Or, we could just focus on trying to get the same legislation that New Jersey is current embroiled in somewhere else, starting at day one with the legislative process.

Although, that path sounds complicated to me.