Topsail Island, North Carolina, October 20, 2009
The Coastal Fisheries Reform Group supports action taken today to halt the incidental killing and injuring of sea turtles by gill nets.
The Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center, of Topsail Beach, North Carolina, has given the National Marine Fisheries Service notice that it will pursue legal remedies in Federal Court against the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries and the North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission. The notice is a prerequisite to any formal legal proceedings based upon the Endangered Species Act, and pertains to the unlawful take of endangered and threatened sea turtles along the entire North Carolina coast. The notice requests that all “gill nets” be removed from all North Carolina coastal waters. If no remedy is found within sixty days then the Beasley Center can file formal legal proceedings.
The sixty day Notice of Intent was filed with all three agencies today.
THE COASTAL FISHERIES REFORM GROUP fully supports this action in light of the “Collateral Damage” created daily by gill nets in NC coastal waters. Sea turtles are endangered, but the carnage and waste of unwanted fish, waterfowl, mammals, and endangered Sturgeon impacted by destructive and indiscriminate gill nets must come to an end now.
North Carolina has almost three million acres of coastal and joint waters and four thousand miles of coastline. It’s high time that North Carolina joins our other southern coastal states in the removal of the destructive gill nets from all NC Coastal waters. From here to Mexico the only states that still allow this archaic practice of gill netting in coastal waters are North Carolina and Mississippi. We have world class universities within two hour’s drive from our coastal waters, yet up until this point science has been stopped at our coastal water’s edge for political considerations.
See the actual notice at this link......
http://www.law.duke.edu/news/pdf/beasleynotice.pdf
.jpg)
12 comments:
Finally!
It's about time!!!! Good Luck NCDMF and NCMFC as you will need it.
Good luck. I thank you and I'm sure the turtles thank you too.
A move in the right direction, but when are they going to tear down all the ocean front houses and close the beaches to allow the turtles to procreate in peace?
The estuaries gift are the commercial fishermen that ply their trade to provide safe,healthy food to the public.Sustainable harvest of nature`s bounty is not the reason the creatures we ALL want to protect are threatened.Why do uninformed people,(some in oceanfront homes)want to harm the very people that most want to protect our resources,the ones that feed their families thru sustainable harvest.
hey Mitchell, how are all the commercial fishermen in SC, GA, FL, AL, LA, and TX catching their fish to sell to the public?
the fishermen in those states don't feed their citizens as we do those states import from us to get healthy fresh seafood and the rest they import from overseas and alot of that stuff isn't fitting to eat and they have had alot of seafood alerts on that stuff/ do some research/ those citizens regret the unwise decisions that were made in regards to gill nets when the price of their seafood sky rocketed and the shortages when they can't get it at all.
Why should citizens of other states be allowed access to our public resource. Outside of banning gill nets as they are such a devastating fishing method, we need to ban the export of our fish to other states - particularly other states which have made those said fish gamefish (red drum, speckled trout, etc).
gill nets are not a devestating fishing method if they are used properly, checking your nets regularly ect.using to run out and take back in but people that don't check daily and obey the law are making us all look bad. out of 40 years using gill nets i have never caught a turtle. the citizens of those other states need to uprise and demand their fishermen be able to fish to supply their state with its fresh seafoood.
Its not about the turtles. CFRG supports this action for one reason: they think they will catch more fish with the gillnetters out of the way. They think that destroying the lives and communities of commercial fishermen is a small price to pay for them to have better recreational fishing. When CFRG was first formed they claimed they were not going for a gill net ban and they asked for input from commercial and recreational fishermen on how to improve our fisheries. I really thought that CFRG was going to be the first group to represent fisheries issues without bias and bring comms and recs together to solve some of the problems we have in our fishery. Boy was i wrong. If you want a gillnet ban, thats fine, just dont hide behing the guise of saving the turtles to get it. I am not a commercial fisherman. I am a recreational fisherman that is sick and tired of groups like CFRG that mislead the public to get what they want.
I would like to know does the CFTG think that commercial fishermen do not contribute to this great state. This is nothing more than one group of people tring to control EVERYTHING that it can. I am a commercial fisherman and I am here to tell you, we will not go down without a fight. This is our heritage!! I am PROUD AND HONORED to say that I am commercial fisherman.
I am proud of my heritage as a buffalo hunter, market gunner for waterfowl, fur trader, whaler and sea turtle fisherman. Hopefully gill netting will soon be added to that list.
But I am proud of that heritage through the history books - not by perpetuating it.
Post a Comment