net bans :: essays research papers

     In July of 1995, Florida put into effect a new law forbiddingning the drill of gill nets in all inshore water of Florida. The law contained devil significant provisions 1) rough non-gill nets would be allowed, but maximum coat would now be special to 500 square feet and 2) unemployment compensation would be available to affected netters through a 20 one million million million vaulting horse fund set aside to purchase the nets that would be made obsolete(Stearns, par.5). This ban on nets has led to a dramatic comeback for a compartmentalization of fish species, including the Spanish mackerel and Florida mullet. In the following essay I doom to show the ban laws, what they encompass whom they affected, as well as their reaction. or so importantly, I intend to show the ban has made an everywhereall returns on Floridas ocean environment.     Over the past 100 years, Florida has been known for having some of the best recreational fishing as well as marine environments. Locals and tourists alike could pick any given day to spend on the water and return with a wide variety of game fish. Unfortunately, over the past decade this trend has been on the decline. The cause of this decrease in the population of Floridas marine environment as well as in other parts of the world, is the indiscriminate use of the monofilament fishing net (par.2). superstar of the areas that have seen just how destructive these nets can be, is the Florida Coast.     In 1990, commercialized gill-netters harvested 26 million pounds of mullet (DeYoung, par.56). In 1994, Floridas became alarmed when the mullet spawning population plummeted to just about 15 percent of normal. They also felt the impact this loss of nutriment food had on game fish. One of the largest causes of this plummet is the lucrative marketplace in the Far East for mullet row, which had almost completely decimated Floridas ancestry of these fish (Stearns, par.2-3).      Due to this large decline, the Florida Marine Fisheries Commission (MFC) placed restrictions on recreational and commercial harvest of mullet. In 1992, recreational fishermen were now limited to fifty fish per boat per day, with no size limit, while commercial fishermen have no "bag limit", but are necessary to release any mullet under eleven inches in length. The results of the restrictions let down the harvest on mullet by recreational fishermen from four million to one million pounds. There was a 75 percent simplification in recreational harvest as a result of the FMCs restrictions.