LWFC Passes NOI to Amend Buffer Zone for Pogey Boats on the Louisiana Coast

On Oct 5 the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Fee handed a Discover of Intent (NOI) to amend guidelines to the menhaden fishery concerning the buffer zone and spill reporting.

This comes after a whole lot of useless redfish had been found washed up on the shore close to Holly Seaside in Cameron Parish. It was confirmed that there have been three separate incidents that occurred the place 850,000 pogies had been spilled together with the bycatch contained in the nets. 

The menhaden AKA pogey boats harvest over 611 million kilos of menhaden per 12 months leading to 66.4 million {dollars} earned in Louisiana waters alone. However it’s not the harvesting of menhaden that’s the issue, it’s the bycatch that’s killed throughout the harvesting course of. 

David Cresson, with the Coastal Conservation Affiliation of Louisiana, appeared on the William Wallis for America present lately and shared with Wallis the method that these firms undergo to be able to harvest menhaden. “The way in which that they promulgate this fishery is that they ship airplanes out throughout the Gulf and people airplanes can spot these colleges of fish. These locations then ship a message all the way down to the large boats that are a fleet of 25 to 30 in Louisiana. The boats then journey to the college of Menhaden the place they deploy two smaller boats that encircle the college utilizing an infinite 1,500-foot-long internet. Then they tighten the web shut like a handbag which is why they name it a ‘purse seine’. The web is tightened to a diameter of about 20 toes. Then they pull the boat as much as the encircled internet and stick a large industrial vacuum hose into the center and so they suck out every thing that’s within it,” Cresson stated. The method was likened by Wallace as “clearcutting a rainforest” as a result of every thing within the internet is sucked up together with redfish, speckled trout, and quite a few different species of inshore fish. “It’s an infinite take for this business. They’re taking a billion kilos of menhaden out of the water however whereas they’re doing this they’re additionally taking tens of hundreds of thousands of kilos of by-catch that I may listing for a half-hour should you needed me to. Redfish spawn on the very seashores the place these boats are fishing. It’s acquired to cease,” Cresson stated. 

At a time when the redfish inhabitants in Lousiana waters is decrease, leisure anglers are bearing the brunt of the blame for “overfishing” the species. And whereas the decrease bag limits and elevated dimension limits haven’t been enacted but, the proposed limits are nonetheless shifting ahead. “Proper now we’re having bother with redfish in Louisiana a lot in order that leisure anglers might endure decrease limits by our fisheries managers. So our limits are about to be lowered but this business is clearly killing 1000’s of those spawning fish with absolute impunity. We want our legislators to step up now,” Cresson stated. Thus far some representatives have stepped up. Cresson talked about Rep. Joe Orgeron, Sen. Jeremy Stein, and Rep. Troy Ramero as being instrumental within the battle towards these pogey boats. “We’ve acquired plenty of champions on this challenge however like every thing in Louisiana, political gamesmanship and purchased safety finally ends up stepping in and stopping good progress,” Cresson stated. 

A invoice was voted down in 2020 that will have put in place a one-mile menhaden fishing “exclusion zone” alongside the complete Louisiana shoreline. Texas and Mississippi have the identical restrictions in place so the invoice would have created a buffer zone that’s constant all through the Gulf Coast apart from Florida which has banned these pogey boats altogether. 

The NOI that was handed will transfer in entrance of the Fee for them to gauge the financial impacts earlier than the rule turns into ultimate. The NOI incorporates the next:

Buffer Zone

This portion of the NOI establishes a coastal buffer zone for the industrial harvest of menhaden 1-mile off the complete Louisiana shoreline and three miles from the realm between Holly Seaside and Rutherford Seaside in western Louisiana. This motion will prolong the prevailing ¼-mile buffer and the prevailing 3-mile buffer at Grand Isle, La. will stay in place.

Reporting

The part of the NOI establishes a 48-hour interval for retrieving any menhaden or bycatch that’s unintentionally or deliberately launched into the surroundings and supplies penalties and restitution related to failure to conform. Moreover, the NOI specifies that reporting should even be made by cellphone name (along with the prevailing electronic mail requirement) inside 2 hours of any launch to the Enforcement Division. The proposed rule modification particulars particular reporting components that have to be included within the notification to the Enforcement Division. 

The information that will probably be required to be reported after a fish launch will embrace:

• Date and time of the discharge
• Species of fish launched
• Disposition of the fish launched
• Identify of the vessel that launched the fish
• Estimation of the variety of fish launched
• Picture / Video proof of the discharge
• Coordinates of the discharge
• Causative components of the discharge

The whole Discover of Intent that the Division of Wildlife and Fisheries Fee submitted will be discovered right here

Keith Lusher

Keith Lusher is an award successful out of doors journalist that resides in Covington, Louisiana. He owns and operates NorthshoreFishingReport.com and writes a weekly out of doors column for the Slidell Impartial Newspaper. He additionally writes for the St.Tammany Parish Tourism Fee’s LouisianaNorthshore.com and Louisiana Northshore Discover Journal. He’s the previous host of The Northshore Fishing Report Radio Present and is on the board of the Louisiana Out of doors Writers Affiliation. Keith contributes to quite a few publications each on-line and in print and prides himself on selling South Louisiana’s distinctive fishery.