Florida Goliath Grouper Protection Battle Lost
from the March, 2022 issue of Undercurrent
Subscriber Content Preview
Only active subscribers can view the whole article here
Thanks to overfishing, the Goliath grouper, slow-growing, and slow-to-reproduce, nearly became extinct off Florida's coast. But they were saved after the state declared them off-limits in 1990. On March 3, that changed.
Ignoring a preponderance of scientists, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission next year will annually issue 200 harvest permit tags for anglers to catch the fish north of Jupiter and 50 additional tags to harvest them from Everglades National Park waters. The fish caught must range between 24 and 36 inches, so the giants we divers love to see are still off-limits but allowing younger fish to be caught ultimately reduces the breeding population.... Subscribers: Read the full article here
;
|