Keith Lusher 02.21.24
On Thursday, Feb. 15, the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Fee unanimously handed the emergency laws that created buffers for the 2024 season. The choice got here as a compromise was reached by conservation teams and business menhaden (pogey) fisheries operators. The brand new laws now require these pogey boats, which kill tons of of redfish because of bycatch, to make use of their nets a half mile off of the Louisiana coast. The earlier buffer zone was 1 / 4 mile. Additionally included within the new laws is a broader 1-mile buffer zone off Holly Seashore. It additionally comprises extra stringent penalties and reporting necessities for future fish spills.
Pogey’s are a important meals supply for inshore and offshore fish together with speckled trout and redfish that are extremely prized amongst saltwater anglers in Louisiana. Previously, Menhaden boats have been allowed to fish as shut as 500 yards from Louisiana’s shorelines, and have been blamed for killing tons of of redfish lately by bycatch. An estimated 1 billion kilos of pogies are taken by the economic Gulf of Mexico pogey fishery every year with nearly all of the catch coming from Louisiana.
Whereas the choice is a step in the best route, leisure anglers and conservation teams had been hoping to attain a 1-mile restriction. This is able to fall according to different states like Alabama and Mississippi that limit pogey boats from coming inside a mile of the shoreline. The restrictions would save 1000’s of redfish that inhabit the Louisiana Shoreline.
David Cresson with CCA of Louisiana hoped to see a 1-mile buffer zone however mentioned the half-mile zone is a step in the best route. “The 2 sides had been requested by the Fee, the Governor and the Legislature to discover a compromise. In any compromise, there’s give and take. Our aspect wished the one-mile buffer. The compromise was 1/2 mile. It’s what it’s,” he mentioned.
Hopefully, with so many eyeballs set on the Menhaden Business in Louisiana, Cresson mentioned we must always be capable to monitor the boats correctly to see if the half-mile buffer. “Solely time will inform if it helps. If incidents of fish spills, web tears, and useless redfish on seashores are decreased, then we will say it was a optimistic transfer,” Cresson mentioned. “If the incidents persist, then we’ll know we want extra. There may be additionally a bycatch research being accomplished in 2024, and that ought to reveal much more about the place these boats ought to be allowed.”
The NOI will now undergo a 30-day oversight interval, the place the joint Legislative Oversight Committees could select to evaluate it and make various suggestions. In the event that they take no motion, the NOI might be formalized as a ultimate rule forward of the 2024 Menhaden fishing season.
