Anglers Have Big Impact on Fish Numbers -- Study

Anglers Have Big Impact on Fish Numbers -- Study
Thu Aug 26, 2004 06:44 PM ET

By Michael Peltier

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Reuters) - Recreational anglers may be responsible for
landing nearly 25 percent of over-fished salt water species caught off
U.S. coasts, a study released on Thursday suggests.

Citing federal data from the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and the U.S. Pacific
coast, researchers at Florida State University said the impact of 10
million U.S. recreational anglers was far more significant than previously
thought.

Across the country, recreational and commercial fishers have been pointing
fingers for decades over which group is responsible for dwindling stocks
of sports fish. In Florida, anglers successfully backed a 1994
constitutional amendment severely restricting commercial fishing in
coastal waters.

Overall, recreational fishers were responsible for 4 percent of the U.S.
take in 2002. But when researchers removed from the statistics
commercially fished species such as pollock and menhaden that have no
recreational value, the percentage of catch from recreational fishers
jumped to 10 percent.

Further, the recreational catch of over-fished species jumped to 23
percent. In the Gulf of Mexico, it accounted for 63 percent of landings.

FSU researcher Felicia Coleman said the findings showed that the
increasingly popular sports fishing industry had a major impact.

Bob Jones, lobbyist for the Southeastern Fisheries Association, a group of
commercial fishing interests, welcomed the study. He said commercial
fishers -- battered by years of adverse publicity -- have known, but could
not prove, that they were not solely responsible for dwindling fish
stocks.

"Just drive down the coast and tell me how many marinas you see and then
tell me how many commercial boats you see," Jones said. "There are a
million of them."

Karl Wickstrom, editor of Florida Sportsman magazine, said researchers
included data on species like red fish in which there is no commercial
interest and failed to take into account limits already in place on
catches of certain species.

"This study is designed to obfuscate the fact that industrial level
over-fishing is the cause of the global fishing crisis we have," he said.
"There is a mountain of information saying commercial fishing is the cause
of fish depletion."

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=6082953