Silver Spring, MD - The RFA received notification today from the National Marine Fisheries Service announcing that they will not approve 13 exempted fishing permits that would have allowed pelagic drift longline vessels to deploy their gear in closed areas off Florida and South Carolina. Pelagic drift longliners are one of the most indiscriminant fishing gear types resulting in high levels of bycatch of protected species and non-targeted fish such as marlin, bluefin tuna and juvenile swordfish. For this reason, numerous closed areas specific to pelagic drift longliners were implemented to curb their excessive bycatch. In time, these closed areas were instrumental in the successful recovery of North Atlantic swordfish in addition to creating outstanding sailfish and marlin fishing off the south Atlantic Coast.
"The outstanding offshore fishing, which has spurred tremendous social and economic benefits to our coastal communities along the south Atlantic, is a direct result of reducing bycatch associated with pelagic longline gear," states RFA Executive Director Jim Donofrio. "All of our important HMS fisheries have benefited greatly from these closures and it is necessary to maintain the current closed areas to continue the recovery of swordfish, and marlin, and to prevent the further decline of bluefin tuna."
Despite this conservation victory, NOAA was considering issuing exempted fishing permits for upwards of 13 longline boats to fish these areas in response to a scientific study submitted by a longline industry group, the Blue Water Fishermen's Association. The goal of the research was to find ways, namely fishing in closed areas, to increase domestic swordfish landings. Make no mistake, 13 longline boats with the hundreds of thousands of hooks would have had a devastating impact on marlin, bluefin tuna and juvenile swordfish if they were allowed to fish in these important conservation areas, and would completely reverse all that has been gained. RFA strongly opposed NOAA issuing exempted fishing permits for pelagic longline vessels to fish in closed areas and orchestrated a massive letter campaign which included RFA sending out over 10,000 letters of opposition.
"We have to commend our members who were highly involved in preventing this unnecessary research from being approved," continues Donofrio. "The recreational fishing community is grateful to the legislators who weighed in on this issue which is very important to the fishermen in their congressional districts."
Ironically, the areas where the longliners were trying to get back into, the Charleston Bump and the East Florida Coast, are closures that were put in place because they protected swordfish nursery areas and stopped the high level of juvenile swordfish bycatch observed to be occurring in those areas. NMFS recently lifted vessel upgrade provisions and increased the incidental and recreational bag limits for swordfish to increase landings. RFA supported some of these measures and further encouraged NMFS to improve data collection programs in an attempt to produce better recreational swordfish landing estimates.
