ReefKeeper International has requested that the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council accelerate its planned 2007 phaseout of wire mesh fish traps so that their use will be prohibited after 2004. This request is endorsed by 22 other national and state conservation organizations.
The current ten-year phase-out period is an extremely long time to completely ban the use of wire-mesh fish traps. Many species are currently facing depletion levels which are too high for replenishment and cannot afford to wait for such a long phase out period. Seven years from now, many of these species could already be totally depleted.
The problem with fish traps is the present impossibility of enforcing escape gap, mesh size, and even trap number regulations because fish traps are not buoyed, are hidden where compliance can't ever be verified, and never have to be returned to the dock for inspection.
The problem with fish traps is the destruction of live bottom caused by the dragging of grapple hooks to locate and retrieve hidden, unbuoyed traps.
The problem with fish traps is the mortality of juvenile snappers and groupers caused by the inability of those juvenile fish to escape from traps with 1-inch-by-2-inch mesh.
The problem with fish traps is the wasteful killing of angelfish, butterflyfish, and many other tropicals which can comprise up to 54% of the fish caught in traps.
The use of wire-mesh fish traps, as permitted under the Council's 1981 Reef Fish Fishery Management Plan, is incompatible with the maintenance of biological diversity and spawning stock biomass for reef fish communities.
Most fishermen in this fishery already use gear other than fish traps. Fish trappers can also shift to other gear and remain in this fishery -- or shift entirely to another fishery of their choice. By enacting a fish trap phase-out that eliminates 10% of permitted traps each year, fish trappers would be provided enough time through normal trap attrition due to loss and normal wear to recapture their capital to invest in new gear instead of reinvesting it in new traps.
The species composition of fish trap catches is another factor at the heart of opposition to the continued use of fish traps in the Gulf reef fish fishery. All the fish trap catch surveys performed by scientific organizations reveal a significant degree of fish trap species non-selectivity.
In 1989, the GMFMC's Draft Amendment 1 to the Reef Fish Fishery Management Plan proposed to "extend the prohibition on directed harvest of reef fish with fish traps to the entire EEZ ... because of concern that fish traps result in wastage of reef fish through ghost fishing and cryptic mortality between trap hauls... (and) that fish traps capture nontarget species and juvenile target species." (GMFMC, 1989 -- option 11.2.1)
These concerns were voiced by the Gulf Council in 1989 and since that time nothing has occurred to keep the Council from having the same concerns today.
The South Atlantic Council, in Amendment 4 to its Snapper-Grouper Fishery Management Plan, concluded "that traps are non-selective by size and by species...and the continued use of such highly efficient gear in a stressed fishery is no longer biologically tolerable." The same applies to the Gulf.
Traps unnecessarily kill an abundance of tropical fish, which enter traps routinely.
Fishery biologists from the Florida Bureau of Marine Research systematically surveyed the catches of 1,694 fish trap hauls while under actual operating conditions on-board commercial fishing boats. One-hundred-eleven reef fish species were identified among the trapped fish, even though less than 10 species accounted for 50% of the total catch. Fifty-four percent of the 13,337 fish caught in fish traps were tropicals and other non-food species. (Taylor and McMichael, 1983)
In a parallel study conducted by the National Marine Fisheries Service, comparable results were obtained. In that study, one-hundred-and-four different reef fish species were found in the traps. Of the 5984 individual fish trapped, 38% were tropicals and other non-food species. (Sutherland and Harper, 1983)
Overall, these two studies found that 49% of 19,321 trapped fish were non-target tropicals.
Of the tropical fish found in fish traps, 17% were angelfish, 9% were trunkfish, 7% were surgeonfish, and 5% to 6% each were butterfly fish, parrotfish and wrasses. (Taylor and McMichael, 1983)
Research by the URI International Center for Marine Resources Development found that with a maximum diagonal mesh aperture of 5.1 cm (2 inches) -- almost exactly the 5.6 cm (2.2 inches) maximum diagonal aperture of currently permitted fish traps in the Gulf -- the mean weight per trapped fish was just .25 kg (8.8 ounces). (Stevenson and Stuart-Sharkey, 1980)
This research proves that fish traps of the mesh size presently used in federal Gulf waters catch fish averaging less than one pound, with half of all trapped fish actually being even smaller. And that may seriously impact juvenile fish numbers and prevent the replenishment of reef fish communities, which are sedentary and relatively isolated.
When the SAFMC prohibited the use of fish traps in the South Atlantic, it recognized that "uniform regulations in both the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic waters should be established in order to facilitate enforcement and understanding by all concerned." We agree with this assessment.
For these problematic reasons, ReefKeeper International is seeking an accelerated phaseout of wire-mesh fish traps in the exclusive economic zone of the Gulf of Mexico.
Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council. 1989. Pages 300-303 in Amendment Number 1 to the Reef Fish Fishery Management Plan.
South Atlantic Fishery Management Council. 1988. Pages 10-15 in Amendment Number 1 and Environmental Assessment and Regulatory Impact Review to the Fishery Management Plan for the Snapper Grouper Fishery of the South Atlantic Region.
South Atlantic Fishery Management Council. 1991. Pages 59-82 in Amendment Number 4, Regulatory Impact Review, Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis and Environmental Assessment for the Fishery Management Plan for the Snapper Grouper Fishery of the South Atlantic Region.
Stevenson, D. K. and P. Stuart-Sharkey. 1980. Performance of wire fish traps on the west coast of Puerto Rico. Proceedings Gulf and Caribbean Fish. Inst. 32: 172-193.
Sutherland, D. L. and D. E. Harper. 1983. The wire fish trap fishery of Dade and Broward Counties. Fla. Mar. Res. Pub. No. 40.
Taylor, R.G. and R.H. McMichael Jr. 1983. The wire fish-trap fishery in Monroe and Collier Counties. Fla. Mar. Res. Pub. No. 39.
VanDolah, R.F., P.h. Wendt and N. Nicholson. 1987. Effects of a research trawl on a hard-bottom assemblage of sponges and corals. Fish. Res. 5: 39-54.