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How about that! The North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries and the Marine Fisheries Commission being sued! Click Here
And Atlantic Bluefin Tuna to be placed on the same endangered species list as the Polar Bear! Click Here
Well, With all of that "pleasant" news-Fishing is great right now off the NC coast!
Gill nets are used primarily in creeks and bays and are useless in the ocean so why the lawsuit? I've been fishing for 25+ years (never with a net) and I've seen some turtles out in the ocean but I've NEVER seen a sea turtle in a creek, sound or bay. I'm not saying there aren't any there, I'm just saying I think it's impossible to make turtles go extinct by using gills nets in inland waters.
Sea turtles are ocean dwellers. I don't think they really hang out in creeks and bays. This kind of sums up my point........
[LEFT]Categorized from threatened to critically endangered, sea turtles from the world’s oceans have mostly been hunted down for their meat, fat and shells (tortoiseshell). These days, the most significant threat for them is a commercial fishing technique called longline fishing, that uses hundreds or even thousands of baited hooks hanging from a single line and causes accidental sea turtle deaths.
NCGT-The primary focus is in the Pamlico Sound-The massive body of water located directly behind Oregon, Hatteras, Ocracoke Inlets. Turtles do abound!
Listen to the audio that was updated to the above link. It is from the Marine Fisheries Commission meeting last September in Pine Knoll Shores. It is Dr. Louis daniel, Director of the NC Division of Marine Fisheries. He forewarns of the closure & explains the problem. He also adds something very interesting. Lou says that the increase of turtle interaction is due to the increase of turtle population.
That's a positive right?
Listen to the audio of the MFC meeting where Dr. Daniels expalins and forewarns of this turtle closure
That is incredible. I learned a few things from that audio.....
It seems evident that the sea turtle population is or has substantially increased.
Nobody really knows what the current sea turtle population really is.
Nobody really knows what population number would be "ideal".
So the NCDMF is getting sued over gill net fishing due to it's impact on a sea turtle population that by all visible evidence is increasing? Granted, I'm no expert on sea turtles but that just doesn't make sense to me. Thanks for posting that audio. I'm a little better educated on the subject now.
Leatherbacks are commonly found in Uruguayan waters (Fallabrino et al. 2000), although the nesting population sources of these leatherbacks are unknown. In Uruguay, the artisanal coastal gillnet fishery, the coastal bottom trawl fishery and the pelagic longline fishery are known to interact with leatherback turtles (Domingo et al. 2003; Fallabrino et al. in press; Miller et al. in press b). Leatherback turtles have been reported in interactions with the lines of crab or lobster traps, mainly in the US (Lewis, pers. com.; Lutcavage et al. 2001) and in Great Britain (Penhallurick 1991). Here, we present the first report of leatherback entanglement in trap lines in the Southwestern Atlantic Ocean.
HHmmm.........
You do realize that report is basically about Uruguay-Not here and the takes were at a depth far greater than what the Pamlico sound has to offer.
62-75 meters down. The Pamlico Sound (where the above closure is) isn't half that depth at its deepest.
"Considering the conservation status of leatherback turtles and the lack of knowledge relative to its presence on the Uruguayan continental shelf, it is extremely urgent to direct more efforts to determine the spatio-temporal distribution of this species in Southwestern Atlantic Ocean waters"
I do find it very odd that the interaction was with the trap line (a singular strand of cord) of a crab pot/lobster pot. Very unusal.
While I'm thinking of it-Jellyfish is on the menu for most turtles. Plastic bags (Like a grocery bag,sandwhich bag or an ice bag) can look like a jelly fish to a turtle. Please retrieve any trash that may get blown into the water!
Bill
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