November 5, 2013 — Gill nets are back.
After almost 20 years of being illegal, the controversial nets that entangle fish by the gills can once again be dragged through the Indian River Lagoon and other state waters.
At least for now.
he Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission issued a memo Friday directing its officers to stop enforcing the 18-year-old gill net ban, after Leon County Judge Jackie Fulford had ordered as much.
Fulford recently ruled in favor of a group of Northwest Florida mullet fishermen who say the 1994 state constitutional amendment that established the gill net ban and the rules Florida enacted to enforce it don’t jibe.
But some worry allowing fishermen to use gill nets — even temporarily as the legal battle continues — could gut mullet and other fish populations the ban was designed to protect. Fulford’s ruling comes at peak mullet spawning season, they warn, when the so-called roe mullet are plump with eggs. Others say most gill nets vanished after the ban took effect, so the threat, if any, would come from across state lines.
“I would suspect the biggest threat on this is people coming in from other states, because they still have the gear,” said Jerry Sansom, executive director of the Organized Fisherman of Florida, a group of about 400 commercial fishermen.
“I’m not sure it’s a major threat on the lagoon,” Sansom said, referring to recent fish declines because of algae blooms. “As we know, there’s not a lot of fish on the lagoon.”
At issue is FWC’s use of a specific net mesh size to define the difference between an illegal gill net and a legal net, which Fulford says contradicts the 1994 amendment. The amendment literally bans use of any gill net or entangling net but a hand-thrown cast net, Fulford asserts in her Oct. 22 ruling.
Read the full story at Florida Today