ANGLERS CALL FOR DRIFT GILLNET BAN -- Archive

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Subject: ANGLERS CALL FOR DRIFT GILLNET BAN

Author:
Jim Day

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Date Posted: 945408330PST

Read the original press release of STRP and CBD at:
**************************************************
RECREATIONAL ANGLERS CALL FOR END OF DRIFT GILLNET FISHING OFF WEST COAST

SUSTAINABLE HARPOON AND RECREATIONAL FISHERY FOR SWORDFISH AND SHARKS HURT BY 20 YRS OF DESTRUCTIVE NET FISHING

For immediate release: December 16, 1999

Contact: Ron Gaul, No Calif RFA 510-536-3398
Keith Poe, So Calif RFA 310-371-4401
Jerry Cicconi, former commercial harpoon fisherman 310-510-1319

The Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA) has over 60,000 members and affiliates nationwide. On behalf of California's multi-million dollar marine sport fishery, RFA is calling for the banning of drift gillnets off California, Oregon and Washington. This fishery overexploits the swordfish, mako and thresher sharks it targets.

"You talk to any fisherman who fished off southern California 30 years ago, and back then you had no problem having 30 blue and mako sharks under your boat without using chum," said Keith Poe, an award winning tag and release shark angler and conservationist. "Now days people ask me 'where can I go to even catch one mako?'"
A once thriving, sustainable commercial fishery using harpoon was devasted by the introduction of these nets. "They ran us out of business 100%." said Jerry Cicconi, former
commercial swordfish harpooner. Harpooned swordfish, he adds, is of higher quality than the mangled meat of netted swordfish. "There are several restaurants that will not touch net caught swordfish."
Because drift gillnets don't have the selectivity of the harpoon, or rod and reel, the bycatch is horrendous. Thousands of blue sharks and scores of sea turtles and marine mammals are dumped overboard, dead, annually.

The mismanagement of this fishery by the National Marine Fisheries Service and the California Dept. of Fish and Game must stop. The California RFA wholeheartedly supports the legal steps taken today by the Sea Turtle Restoration Project and the Center for Biological Diversity to ban this wasteful and barbaric fishing gear.

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