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(Extract from: The Florida Sportsman magazine, by John Randolph.)
Beginning on July I this year (1995), all entanglement fish nets will be banned in Florida's state waters, and seine nets larger than 500 square feet will be banned within a mile of Florida's east coast and three miles of its west coast.
The state constitutional amendment calling for the ban was passed last November 9 by an
overwhelming margin by Florida voters: 2,858,227 to 1,122,949.
After two years of legal and political preparation and intensive public-awareness campaigns, the Save Our Sea Life (S.O.S.) campaign obtained more than 400,000 signatures, enough to qualify Amendment 3 in the 1994 election for a plebiscite vote to create a state constitutional amendment banning gill nets in Florida waters.
Commenting on the victory in his magazine, Florida Sportsman publisher Karl Wickstrom had this to say:
"It was a clear mandate from the people, a remarkable statement for conservation that will send repercussions through the halls of government, not only in Florida but in other states and on a federal level."
The entire food chain, from top to bottom, was being depleted by over netting by commercial fishermen in Florida's waters that had three decades ago teemed with fish.
The incidental "bycatch" of the nets destroyed sea turtles, porpoises, snook, redfish, and tarpon, as well as the young of virtually all species.
Perhaps more insidious were the effects of lower food chain depletion on species higher in the food chain that depend on them.
The Florida Sportsman noted in its November 1994 edition:
"In 1991 a 75 percent decline in brown pelican nesting was documented following the heavy netting of Spanish sardines and threadfin herring on Florida's Tampa Bay and other bait-fish along Florida's west shore.
Prior to this in 1987, a similar decline in wading and fishing birds in Everglades National Park was linked to reduced availability of forage fish".
The clearest case of Florida's "tragedy of the commons" involved mullet - a prime forage-base food for gamefish and birds - and shameful commercial roe harvests. Each year an estimated 12 million pounds of mullet were being harvested during the three-month winter roe season. And how were they used?
The roe was ripped from the female fish and sent to the Far East to be sold as a delicacy. "Most of the fish, after the roe is removed, is used to bait crab traps or is dumped into local landfills or discarded back into the water because the amount of fresh fish is far more than the market can absorb." Wickstrom reported.
The disappearance of mullet from Florida's waters during the past three decades was caused by overfishing by commercial fishermen in waters that belong to the people of Florida (the commons). The Florida state legislature and the state wildlife agency failed to protect the fisheries against commercial depredation. The reaction of Florida voters is both admirable and understandable.
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