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diggin4grouper
Posts: 151 Officer
Did 1994 gill-net vote mislead?
diggin4grouper
Posts: 151 Officer
For 20 years, Floridians ranging from self-proclaimed conservationists to politicians to newspaper editorial writers to recreational fishermen have insisted that the state's gill-net ban is "the will of the people."
The question now is whether the people were duped into voting for the ban in November 1994 by a sophisticated propaganda campaign that included misrepresentation and reporters for major newspapers who were paid employees of the man behind the ban — two decades later, net-ban proponents continue to use questionable tactics to counter any challenges to the net ban.
"That's how they won: They lied," Pine Island commercial fisherman Mike Dooley said. "If they hadn't had the propaganda, the amendment wouldn't have passed. But we didn't have the money to fight them."
Save Our Sealife
In 1991, Karl Wickstrom, founder and publisher of Florida Sportsman magazine, started and became chairman of a group called Save Our Sealife (SOS), which collected more than 500,000 signatures to get a constitutional amendment that would ban the use of gill nets in state waters on the 1994 ballot.
Wickstrom and other gill-net opponents, including the Florida Conservation Association (now Coastal Conservation Association Florida), said gill nets were wiping out fish stocks and killing sea turtles, dolphins and birds.
SOS was the biggest player in the campaign: According to director Bill Coletti's Linkedin website, the organization had a volunteer force of more than 13,000 people and a budget of $1.2 million, raised from more than 11,000 donors nationwide.
Amendment 3 — the net-ban amendment — was approved by 72 percent of those who voted on the issue. Sixty percent passage was needed.
Wickstrom wasn't surprised by the outcome.
"That was quite a war," he said. "There was a lot of misinformation put out. People were saying their lives would be ruined. It didn't turn out that way. Everything is better without gill nets."
Fisherman remove mullet from legal seine nets during
Fisherman remove mullet from legal seine nets during a recent outing.(Photo: News-Press file photo)
Propaganda
In the years before the election, the net-ban lobby used classic propaganda tactics, including what is known as "demonizing the enemy," with commercial fishermen being depicted as white-booted thugs **** the environment.
According to a 2003 University of Florida study, information put out by net-ban proponents was "often insufficient and misleading. ... Heartbreaking images of birds, dolphins, and sea turtles tangled in fishing nets led the public to believe that commercial fishing was not only degrading fisheries stocks but destroying Florida's marine environment."
Among those images was an underwater photograph on an ubiquitous SOS pamphlet of a dead sea turtle entangled in a gill net; the pamphlet proclaimed, "Stop killer nets! Vote yes on Amendment 3." The problem is that the photograph was taken far offshore, not where Florida's inshore commercial fishermen work.
At the suggestion that the pamphlet was misleading, Wickstrom said: "That's really stretching. The purpose of the picture was to show a turtle in a gill net. It didn't give an exact location. But the tragedy of it was very clear. There was nothing misleading about it. It's simply showing a turtle in a net."
Other heartbreaking images appeared in an SOS television advertisement:
● Video of baskets of dead fish being dumped over the side of a boat; the implication was that Florida's inshore commercial fishermen killed vast numbers of non-target fish. In reality, the video was shot in 1988 aboard the University of Georgia's research vessel Georgia Bulldog as scientists were doing research on shrimp nets in the Atlantic Ocean near Cape Canaveral.
● Video of a sea turtle entangled in a net. Implication: Florida's inshore commercial fishermen killed sea turtles. Reality: The video was shot on the same 1988 trip aboard the Georgia Bulldog; the turtle was tagged and returned to the water in good health.
"That's so silly," Wickstrom said when asked whether the ad was misleading. "It was to show what a shrimper looks like. It's not a big thing. If you ran a picture of a car to indicate a car, it's not important who owns the car or where it is."
Wickstorm's answer dodges the question: Amendment 3 had nothing to do with the shrimp industry, which does not use gill nets, so showing "what a shrimper looks like" to convince people to vote for the amendment makes no sense other than to fool the public into thinking all commercial nets are gill nets.
NEWS-PRESS
Letting fish down safely
Controlling the press
When a government launches a propaganda campaign, its first move is usually to control the press.
Wickstrom controlled an important portion Florida's press during the campaign: Outdoors writers for five major newspapers who wrote in favor of the net ban before the election were also paid employees of Florida Sportsman — Frank Sargeant, Tampa Tribune; Richard Farren, Tallahassee Democrat, listed on the Florida Sportsman masthead before the election as an editor at large; Bill Sargent, Florida Today and Florida Sportsman East Central Florida field editor; Richard Bowles, Gainesville Sun and Florida Sportsman Big Bend field editor; and Byron Stout, The News-Press and Florida Sportsman Southwest Florida field editor.
In an email to The News-Press, Lyn Millner, associate professor of journalism at Florida Gulf Coast University, wrote that reporters who write in favor of an issue before an election while being paid by a proponent of one side of the issue have "a clear ethical conflict of interest," and the effect of such a conflict on the election would be "in the range of significant to huge."
Wickstrom disagreed.
"It wasn't just our people," he said. "Outdoors writers everywhere were writing about it. Almost everyone favored getting rid of gill nets, except the ones who were using them, and they were dealing strictly with their wallets."
Stout didn't see a conflict either, because, he said, the Florida Conservation Association started SOS and the net-ban movement, while Wickstrom and Florida Sportsman merely "endorsed the campaign" and weren't the "driving force" behind it.
"Karl Wickstrom is a savvy communicator," Stout said. "To what extent he participated in the net-ban campaign, I don't know. I had nothing to do with it. I always wrote what I thought was right, whether I agreed with (the net-ban lobby's) position or not."
In a Nov. 15, 1995, story, Stout contradicted his assertion that Wickstrom had little to do with the net-ban campaign: "Karl Wickstrom, who conceived and led the Save Our Sealife initiative to ban gill and entangling nets from Florida waters, came to Fort Myers on Tuesday with a glowing report."
Fish numbers
An argument often put forth by outdoors writers in their newspapers was that gill nets almost wiped out Florida's redfish population in the 1980s — the cover story of the December 2013 issue of Florida Sportsman makes the same claim.
But Mike Murphy, a senior research scientist at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, said "the most significant part" of the redfish harvest was recreational. In the 1980s, there was no recreational bag limit, a 12-inch minimum size and no closed season for redfish, so sport fishermen were keeping as many very small and very large reds as they wanted.
New regulations in 1989 included a recreational bag limit, an 18- to 27-inch slot size and a three-month closed season and prohibited the commercial harvest of redfish; the recreational harvest dropped from between 600,000 and 1 million redfish a year to about 200,000, and the commercial harvest dropped from 200,000 to zero.
Redfish populations started rebounding before the 1994 election, and the net ban, which went into effect July 1, 1995, had no effect on redfish because commercial fishermen hadn't harvested the species for six years — returning to pre-election tactics, though, the December 2013 Florida Sportsman cover story states, "In 1996, the closed season was dropped thanks to a resurgent redfish population aided by the absence of gill nets that had plagued Florida waters until banned in 1994 by state constitutional amendment."
Another issue was seatrout, whose populations were collapsing in the early 1990s; outdoors writers blamed gill nets.
According to state statistics, during the 10 years before the net ban, commercial fishermen harvested an average of 1.14 million pounds of seatrout a year, compared to 4.44 million harvested by recreational fishermen.
Seatrout expert Steve Bortone, former executive director of the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, said gill nets "had something to do with" Florida's low seatrout populations.
"But most data show gill nets weren't responsible for it," he said. "Most biologists believe it was habitat decline, the loss of seagrasses.
"The net ban was a kind of economic racism. A bunch of people whose livelihoods didn't depend on net fishing decided to gang up on a group that couldn't defend itself. It's a shame."
Rhonda Dooley, Mike Dooley's wife, said the pro-ban tactics made the outcome of the election inevitable.
"They were showing dead sea turtles and dolphins caught in nets and saying we were catching all the fish," she said. "The public had no knowledge other than what was being propagated by the net-ban people. If I'd been on the outside looking in and had seen all that on TV and read about it in the paper, I would have voted for the amendment, too."
Jim Frock, owner of Seven C's Bait & Tackle Shop in Matlacha did vote for the amendment based on what he saw on television and read in the paper.
"It was b.s.," he said. "I thought the commercial guys were killing a lot of other fish and that the net ban would drastically improve recreational fishing. But I was ignorant in my assumption. I should have known better. The net ban hurt a lot of people who didn't deserve it."
Will of the people
After the election, "will of the people" became the catch phrase for net-ban supporters whenever anyone questioned the ban.
For example, Ted Forsgren, executive director of the Florida Conservation Association, said in April 1995 that state budget cuts that would make enforcement of the net ban difficult were "just a shot at trying to overturn the will of the overwhelming majority of the people of this state."
But Florida's population in 1990 was 13 million, and 2.8 million people voted for the amendment. That's 22 percent of the population, not "the overwhelming majority of the people of this state."
"Will of the people" rhetoric continued for 20 years, especially after Judge Jackie Fulford of the Second Judicial Circuit ruled in October 2013 that the net ban is a "legal absurdity" and would no longer be enforced.
A Nov. 12, 2013, Florida Times Union editorial, for example, states: "But the real absurdity is that a single circuit court judge can issue a ruling that overturns the will of the state's voters."
In another return to pre-election tactics, Coastal Conservation Association-Florida started an online petition drive to give recreational fishermen a voice on Fulford's ruling. The petition declared, "Reinstate the 'Net Ban' and heed the will of 72% of Florida Voters!"
Featured on the website were the words "Do you like dead turtles" and an underwater photograph of five dead sea turtles caught in a net.
But the turtles didn't die in Florida gill nets: The photograph was taken off the coast of Brazil and has appeared on numerous websites, including nationalgeographic.com.
On July 7, 2014, the First District Court of Appeal overturned Fulford's ruling.
What if?
Net-ban advocates point to the overwhelming 72 percent of the vote on Amendment 3 to prove that the net ban is the will of the people.
One can only wonder what the will of the people would have been in November 1994 if not for the questionable tactics of net-ban advocates.
"What's the old saying? Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story," said Jerry Sansom, executive director of Organized Fishermen of Florida. "You can never be sure about what-ifs, but any time folks use misleading or erroneous information to get what they want, you have to believe people would have made a different decision if they hadn't been lied to.
"It was a collective effort: Somebody yelled, 'They're **** the environment.' They got people **** up and turned them loose."
The will of the people
In November 1994, Amendment 3, which banned the use of gill nets in state waters, passed with 72 percent of the vote. Since then, net-ban supporters have insisted that the net ban was the will of the people, but Florida's population in 1990 was 13 million; 2,876,091 people or 22 percent of the population, voted for the amendment.
Here are a few examples of "will of the people" rhetoric found on the internet:
Here are a few examples found on the Internet:
● Editorial in Daytona Beach News-Journal, June 22, 1995: "Public debate on the net ban amendment was thorough in the months before the election. The suit is intended to overturn the will of the people, not to clarify it." Commercial fishermen were suing the state to block the net ban.
● Sun Sentinel editorial, Sept. 23, 1996: "A handful of willful, lawless net fishermen should not be allowed to undermine the will of the people, sound fish management practices and good public policy."
● State Senator Charlie Crist, Nov. 7, 1996, at a hearing of the Marine Fisheries Commission about an emergency rule to ban the use of a hybrid net to harvest mullet: "You have the opportunity to ban these nets now under this emergency rule. I urge you to do the right thing for our environment. I request that you uphold the will of the people and approve this important rule."
● Sarasota Herald Tribune, March 13, 1997: "The Palm Harbor Republican (Jack Latvala) said the will of the people, who voted overwhelmingly for the net ban amendment to the state constitution, was being thwarted."
● Sun Sentinel editorial, April 13, 1997: "Tougher rules are vital because many net fishermen have thumbed their noses at the law and the will of the people."
● Ted Forsgren, executive director of the Florida Conservation Association (now Coastal Conservation Association-Florida), in The Tampa Tribune, June 4, 2008: "A constitutional amendment cannot be changed by a state rule or legislation; it's the will of the people of Florida specifically expressed." In 2008, FWC Commissioner Rodney Barreto said the commission could change mesh size any time they want, and in November 2013, Florida constitutional law expert Talbot "Sandy" D'Alemberte told The News-Press that if the amendment is found to be invalid, the state could choose not to apply it.
Note: In October 2013, Jackie Fulford of the Second Judicial Circuit ruled that the net ban is a "legal absurdity" and would no longer be enforced. Net-ban supporters insisted Fulford's ruling went against the will of the people. On July 7, 2014, the First District Court of Appeal overturned Fulford's ruling.
● Recreational Fishing Alliance, Nov. 6, 2013: "The future of Florida's natural resource — and the will of the people — was completely undermined last week, as Leon County Circuit judge Jackie Fulford overturned the voter-approved, constitutionally protected net ban, while paving the way for wide-scale decimation of Florida fish stocks."
● Manley Fuller, general council Florida Wildlife Federation, May, 25, 2014, guest opinion Naples Daily News: "Since 1994, many unsuccessful lawsuits have been filed to overturn the will of the voters. … The will of the people should be supported, even in the face of over 20 years of fruitless attacks."
● Tampa Tribune, July 15, 2014: "The appeals court decision may not be the end of the litigation. The netters will likely plan other attacks. But after 20 years, it's time the commercial fishing industry accepted the will of the people and the law."
The question now is whether the people were duped into voting for the ban in November 1994 by a sophisticated propaganda campaign that included misrepresentation and reporters for major newspapers who were paid employees of the man behind the ban — two decades later, net-ban proponents continue to use questionable tactics to counter any challenges to the net ban.
"That's how they won: They lied," Pine Island commercial fisherman Mike Dooley said. "If they hadn't had the propaganda, the amendment wouldn't have passed. But we didn't have the money to fight them."
Save Our Sealife
In 1991, Karl Wickstrom, founder and publisher of Florida Sportsman magazine, started and became chairman of a group called Save Our Sealife (SOS), which collected more than 500,000 signatures to get a constitutional amendment that would ban the use of gill nets in state waters on the 1994 ballot.
Wickstrom and other gill-net opponents, including the Florida Conservation Association (now Coastal Conservation Association Florida), said gill nets were wiping out fish stocks and killing sea turtles, dolphins and birds.
SOS was the biggest player in the campaign: According to director Bill Coletti's Linkedin website, the organization had a volunteer force of more than 13,000 people and a budget of $1.2 million, raised from more than 11,000 donors nationwide.
Amendment 3 — the net-ban amendment — was approved by 72 percent of those who voted on the issue. Sixty percent passage was needed.
Wickstrom wasn't surprised by the outcome.
"That was quite a war," he said. "There was a lot of misinformation put out. People were saying their lives would be ruined. It didn't turn out that way. Everything is better without gill nets."
Fisherman remove mullet from legal seine nets during
Fisherman remove mullet from legal seine nets during a recent outing.(Photo: News-Press file photo)
Propaganda
In the years before the election, the net-ban lobby used classic propaganda tactics, including what is known as "demonizing the enemy," with commercial fishermen being depicted as white-booted thugs **** the environment.
According to a 2003 University of Florida study, information put out by net-ban proponents was "often insufficient and misleading. ... Heartbreaking images of birds, dolphins, and sea turtles tangled in fishing nets led the public to believe that commercial fishing was not only degrading fisheries stocks but destroying Florida's marine environment."
Among those images was an underwater photograph on an ubiquitous SOS pamphlet of a dead sea turtle entangled in a gill net; the pamphlet proclaimed, "Stop killer nets! Vote yes on Amendment 3." The problem is that the photograph was taken far offshore, not where Florida's inshore commercial fishermen work.
At the suggestion that the pamphlet was misleading, Wickstrom said: "That's really stretching. The purpose of the picture was to show a turtle in a gill net. It didn't give an exact location. But the tragedy of it was very clear. There was nothing misleading about it. It's simply showing a turtle in a net."
Other heartbreaking images appeared in an SOS television advertisement:
● Video of baskets of dead fish being dumped over the side of a boat; the implication was that Florida's inshore commercial fishermen killed vast numbers of non-target fish. In reality, the video was shot in 1988 aboard the University of Georgia's research vessel Georgia Bulldog as scientists were doing research on shrimp nets in the Atlantic Ocean near Cape Canaveral.
● Video of a sea turtle entangled in a net. Implication: Florida's inshore commercial fishermen killed sea turtles. Reality: The video was shot on the same 1988 trip aboard the Georgia Bulldog; the turtle was tagged and returned to the water in good health.
"That's so silly," Wickstrom said when asked whether the ad was misleading. "It was to show what a shrimper looks like. It's not a big thing. If you ran a picture of a car to indicate a car, it's not important who owns the car or where it is."
Wickstorm's answer dodges the question: Amendment 3 had nothing to do with the shrimp industry, which does not use gill nets, so showing "what a shrimper looks like" to convince people to vote for the amendment makes no sense other than to fool the public into thinking all commercial nets are gill nets.
NEWS-PRESS
Letting fish down safely
Controlling the press
When a government launches a propaganda campaign, its first move is usually to control the press.
Wickstrom controlled an important portion Florida's press during the campaign: Outdoors writers for five major newspapers who wrote in favor of the net ban before the election were also paid employees of Florida Sportsman — Frank Sargeant, Tampa Tribune; Richard Farren, Tallahassee Democrat, listed on the Florida Sportsman masthead before the election as an editor at large; Bill Sargent, Florida Today and Florida Sportsman East Central Florida field editor; Richard Bowles, Gainesville Sun and Florida Sportsman Big Bend field editor; and Byron Stout, The News-Press and Florida Sportsman Southwest Florida field editor.
In an email to The News-Press, Lyn Millner, associate professor of journalism at Florida Gulf Coast University, wrote that reporters who write in favor of an issue before an election while being paid by a proponent of one side of the issue have "a clear ethical conflict of interest," and the effect of such a conflict on the election would be "in the range of significant to huge."
Wickstrom disagreed.
"It wasn't just our people," he said. "Outdoors writers everywhere were writing about it. Almost everyone favored getting rid of gill nets, except the ones who were using them, and they were dealing strictly with their wallets."
Stout didn't see a conflict either, because, he said, the Florida Conservation Association started SOS and the net-ban movement, while Wickstrom and Florida Sportsman merely "endorsed the campaign" and weren't the "driving force" behind it.
"Karl Wickstrom is a savvy communicator," Stout said. "To what extent he participated in the net-ban campaign, I don't know. I had nothing to do with it. I always wrote what I thought was right, whether I agreed with (the net-ban lobby's) position or not."
In a Nov. 15, 1995, story, Stout contradicted his assertion that Wickstrom had little to do with the net-ban campaign: "Karl Wickstrom, who conceived and led the Save Our Sealife initiative to ban gill and entangling nets from Florida waters, came to Fort Myers on Tuesday with a glowing report."
Fish numbers
An argument often put forth by outdoors writers in their newspapers was that gill nets almost wiped out Florida's redfish population in the 1980s — the cover story of the December 2013 issue of Florida Sportsman makes the same claim.
But Mike Murphy, a senior research scientist at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, said "the most significant part" of the redfish harvest was recreational. In the 1980s, there was no recreational bag limit, a 12-inch minimum size and no closed season for redfish, so sport fishermen were keeping as many very small and very large reds as they wanted.
New regulations in 1989 included a recreational bag limit, an 18- to 27-inch slot size and a three-month closed season and prohibited the commercial harvest of redfish; the recreational harvest dropped from between 600,000 and 1 million redfish a year to about 200,000, and the commercial harvest dropped from 200,000 to zero.
Redfish populations started rebounding before the 1994 election, and the net ban, which went into effect July 1, 1995, had no effect on redfish because commercial fishermen hadn't harvested the species for six years — returning to pre-election tactics, though, the December 2013 Florida Sportsman cover story states, "In 1996, the closed season was dropped thanks to a resurgent redfish population aided by the absence of gill nets that had plagued Florida waters until banned in 1994 by state constitutional amendment."
Another issue was seatrout, whose populations were collapsing in the early 1990s; outdoors writers blamed gill nets.
According to state statistics, during the 10 years before the net ban, commercial fishermen harvested an average of 1.14 million pounds of seatrout a year, compared to 4.44 million harvested by recreational fishermen.
Seatrout expert Steve Bortone, former executive director of the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, said gill nets "had something to do with" Florida's low seatrout populations.
"But most data show gill nets weren't responsible for it," he said. "Most biologists believe it was habitat decline, the loss of seagrasses.
"The net ban was a kind of economic racism. A bunch of people whose livelihoods didn't depend on net fishing decided to gang up on a group that couldn't defend itself. It's a shame."
Rhonda Dooley, Mike Dooley's wife, said the pro-ban tactics made the outcome of the election inevitable.
"They were showing dead sea turtles and dolphins caught in nets and saying we were catching all the fish," she said. "The public had no knowledge other than what was being propagated by the net-ban people. If I'd been on the outside looking in and had seen all that on TV and read about it in the paper, I would have voted for the amendment, too."
Jim Frock, owner of Seven C's Bait & Tackle Shop in Matlacha did vote for the amendment based on what he saw on television and read in the paper.
"It was b.s.," he said. "I thought the commercial guys were killing a lot of other fish and that the net ban would drastically improve recreational fishing. But I was ignorant in my assumption. I should have known better. The net ban hurt a lot of people who didn't deserve it."
Will of the people
After the election, "will of the people" became the catch phrase for net-ban supporters whenever anyone questioned the ban.
For example, Ted Forsgren, executive director of the Florida Conservation Association, said in April 1995 that state budget cuts that would make enforcement of the net ban difficult were "just a shot at trying to overturn the will of the overwhelming majority of the people of this state."
But Florida's population in 1990 was 13 million, and 2.8 million people voted for the amendment. That's 22 percent of the population, not "the overwhelming majority of the people of this state."
"Will of the people" rhetoric continued for 20 years, especially after Judge Jackie Fulford of the Second Judicial Circuit ruled in October 2013 that the net ban is a "legal absurdity" and would no longer be enforced.
A Nov. 12, 2013, Florida Times Union editorial, for example, states: "But the real absurdity is that a single circuit court judge can issue a ruling that overturns the will of the state's voters."
In another return to pre-election tactics, Coastal Conservation Association-Florida started an online petition drive to give recreational fishermen a voice on Fulford's ruling. The petition declared, "Reinstate the 'Net Ban' and heed the will of 72% of Florida Voters!"
Featured on the website were the words "Do you like dead turtles" and an underwater photograph of five dead sea turtles caught in a net.
But the turtles didn't die in Florida gill nets: The photograph was taken off the coast of Brazil and has appeared on numerous websites, including nationalgeographic.com.
On July 7, 2014, the First District Court of Appeal overturned Fulford's ruling.
What if?
Net-ban advocates point to the overwhelming 72 percent of the vote on Amendment 3 to prove that the net ban is the will of the people.
One can only wonder what the will of the people would have been in November 1994 if not for the questionable tactics of net-ban advocates.
"What's the old saying? Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story," said Jerry Sansom, executive director of Organized Fishermen of Florida. "You can never be sure about what-ifs, but any time folks use misleading or erroneous information to get what they want, you have to believe people would have made a different decision if they hadn't been lied to.
"It was a collective effort: Somebody yelled, 'They're **** the environment.' They got people **** up and turned them loose."
The will of the people
In November 1994, Amendment 3, which banned the use of gill nets in state waters, passed with 72 percent of the vote. Since then, net-ban supporters have insisted that the net ban was the will of the people, but Florida's population in 1990 was 13 million; 2,876,091 people or 22 percent of the population, voted for the amendment.
Here are a few examples of "will of the people" rhetoric found on the internet:
Here are a few examples found on the Internet:
● Editorial in Daytona Beach News-Journal, June 22, 1995: "Public debate on the net ban amendment was thorough in the months before the election. The suit is intended to overturn the will of the people, not to clarify it." Commercial fishermen were suing the state to block the net ban.
● Sun Sentinel editorial, Sept. 23, 1996: "A handful of willful, lawless net fishermen should not be allowed to undermine the will of the people, sound fish management practices and good public policy."
● State Senator Charlie Crist, Nov. 7, 1996, at a hearing of the Marine Fisheries Commission about an emergency rule to ban the use of a hybrid net to harvest mullet: "You have the opportunity to ban these nets now under this emergency rule. I urge you to do the right thing for our environment. I request that you uphold the will of the people and approve this important rule."
● Sarasota Herald Tribune, March 13, 1997: "The Palm Harbor Republican (Jack Latvala) said the will of the people, who voted overwhelmingly for the net ban amendment to the state constitution, was being thwarted."
● Sun Sentinel editorial, April 13, 1997: "Tougher rules are vital because many net fishermen have thumbed their noses at the law and the will of the people."
● Ted Forsgren, executive director of the Florida Conservation Association (now Coastal Conservation Association-Florida), in The Tampa Tribune, June 4, 2008: "A constitutional amendment cannot be changed by a state rule or legislation; it's the will of the people of Florida specifically expressed." In 2008, FWC Commissioner Rodney Barreto said the commission could change mesh size any time they want, and in November 2013, Florida constitutional law expert Talbot "Sandy" D'Alemberte told The News-Press that if the amendment is found to be invalid, the state could choose not to apply it.
Note: In October 2013, Jackie Fulford of the Second Judicial Circuit ruled that the net ban is a "legal absurdity" and would no longer be enforced. Net-ban supporters insisted Fulford's ruling went against the will of the people. On July 7, 2014, the First District Court of Appeal overturned Fulford's ruling.
● Recreational Fishing Alliance, Nov. 6, 2013: "The future of Florida's natural resource — and the will of the people — was completely undermined last week, as Leon County Circuit judge Jackie Fulford overturned the voter-approved, constitutionally protected net ban, while paving the way for wide-scale decimation of Florida fish stocks."
● Manley Fuller, general council Florida Wildlife Federation, May, 25, 2014, guest opinion Naples Daily News: "Since 1994, many unsuccessful lawsuits have been filed to overturn the will of the voters. … The will of the people should be supported, even in the face of over 20 years of fruitless attacks."
● Tampa Tribune, July 15, 2014: "The appeals court decision may not be the end of the litigation. The netters will likely plan other attacks. But after 20 years, it's time the commercial fishing industry accepted the will of the people and the law."
Replies
Was in needed...yes
Was it "misleading"... there was BS on both sides of the issue....
Wil it get overturned....In the face of ever decreasing stocks with ever increasing population...Seriously?...You think this needs an answer? :rotflmao
Many things to do.
Knots to be unraveled
'fore the darkness falls on you
What do u get when you can connect the dots, color inside the lines, and get your release papers.....sentence served, times up at Felon sentenced university.
Floridas first woman's college.
The only difference between FSU and all the other colleges are other colleges accept you into the university's. At FSU you are taken into custody.
1st off its not a cut and paste job its a complete article that proves that the B.S. of mr wickstrom and the rest of the sos people are full of **** !
2nd there was no misleading fact that the commercial fishermen put out ! everything was truthful not like mr wickstrom and cca useing images from other states which mislead the public ....
3rd it has been overturned once already so it very well might be again because the truth about this is finaly comeing to light and that the propaganda that got it in law will eventually be the death of the ban
But Mike Murphy, a senior research scientist at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, said "the most significant part" of the redfish harvest was recreational. In the 1980s, there was no recreational bag limit, a 12-inch minimum size and no closed season for redfish, so sport fishermen were keeping as many very small and very large reds as they wanted.
i can find all kinds of photos to prove my point this is just onr of them
I guess you don't want to talk about the son of a west coast fish house owner/ netter who illegally took thousands of pounds of breeder Reds....No, I did not think so.
Many things to do.
Knots to be unraveled
'fore the darkness falls on you
Only if they can find some dimwit panhandle woman judge again....which will not hold up......like it has NEVER held up.
Many things to do.
Knots to be unraveled
'fore the darkness falls on you
Many things to do.
Knots to be unraveled
'fore the darkness falls on you
nope i dont need one thanks though , the research is there if you so choose to read it , and i would also bet that you do not even know what the lawsuit was about because it wasnt just to get the law over turned .
but as far as the son of a west coast fish house owner/ netter there will always be a few bad apples in a bunch just like there are poachers in rec fishing too . and a few thousand rec poachers will do far more harm that a few commercial guys , talk to fwc they will tell you that for ever 1 commercial guy there are 25 rec poachers doing more harm than that 1 guy with a net , hell in port saint lucie i watch a guy take 300 jevinalle reds he would catch it and run it to his house and come right back , till i turned his **** in
commercial fishermen have done more to protect the fish than any CCA or any other conservation group ever has because it is there living not just a sport to them ...
.
Ever decreasing stocks of redfish?? Whose fault is that Joe?
The only inshore fish(except snook and tarpon) with no sale and the stocks are decreasing?....
Come on Joe admit it's a rec problem.
Now let's look for a moment at what caused many Floridians (myself among them) to work as hard as we could to get that constitutional amendment into place. By the late seventies the hand writing was on the wall. We watched specie after specie go into decline and collapse due to serious overfishing -mostly, but not all, from netting on an industrial scale (serious understatement here....). We watched every reasonable effort to get the state legislature to curb these excesses fail every time (and I was part of several letter writing campaigns that the legislature just ignored). This was of course the heyday of Dempsey Barron and the old "Pork chop gang" which pretty much controlled the legislature back then (and was strongly supported by most all in the netting and fish house industry). Since we lacked any other means it was decided to force the issue by going fora constitutional amendment that would ban inshore netting. By the way the overfishing wasn't just on the commercial side of things since many very skilled recreational anglers were in fact acting as hook and line commercials (but that's another story - thanks to the FWC for ending that sort of stuff....). By the late eighties we were in desperate shape having lost our spanish mackeral, kingfish, and could easily see the terrible decline in mullet stocks. All of this was greatly made worse by the new craze for blackened redfish - and the way big, breeder redfish that had never before had a market -all of a sudden a simple recipe meant that netters (and no one else...) were just slaughtering the big breeder redfish... If no action had been taken I doubt we'd even remember redfish here in this state (but that's just my opinion....). I've left the worst of it for last... the commercial netting industry was also highly focused on the very lucrative mullet roe (just plain fish eggs but the orient was paying top dollar). The really bad part is that it was targetting fish preparing to spawn and mullet were and fortunately still are one of the primary food sources for every inshore (and many offshore) gamefish in our state. Along with the millions of pounds of mullet being taken annually was the tremendous by-catch those nets provided. It's not an accident that speckled trout and pompano came roaring back after the net ban had been in place for a few years....
As you can see -there's certainly another side to this story, and I imagine we'll still be arguing about when I'm no longer around. I was a strong supporter of the net ban amendment long before I became a full time guide. Once it was in place I made a point of doing as much fund raising for the CCA as possible - and I'm still donating trips for auction in more than one state in their support since they're the ones that need the money to hire someone to stand up for us at the legislature. They're also the ones that hire the lawyers needed to defend against every attempt to get around or repeal that amendment. Me, I think it's the best thing that ever happened to my state. I came here in 1971, fresh out of the Army (and only days back from my senior trip to a very bad place...). There is some very good news these days for fishery conservation issues. There's been a huge influx of folks over the years that have come from states that don't do a very good job of protecting their resources and I think our side is much bigger and better educated about this sort of stuff... We also stand ready to defend the state's fisheries against those that woud take every last fish -as long as they got paid....
Bob LeMay
(954) 435-5666
OK Art...I know we discussed this while walking your dog in the woods :wink
and anyone who has read my ranting knows that I am of the opinion that the "net ban" was a band-aid on a gushing gunshot wound to the head!....The issue always comes back(inshore species) to HABITAT. The net ban only forestalled the inevitable. Too many people (not fisherman) crowded along the coastline with everyone wanting a dark green lawn....no infrastructure(sewers) to keep nutrient loads at bay...and other factors are leading to falling numbers.
Fact is that if the Redfish fishery was not closed in 1988(1989?) and then open it to one per person....It would have collapsed a long time ago...as would have trout and snook without limits and slots to protect stocks and keep recruitment levels at sustainable levels.
PS...Redfish are doing well in many areas of the state as are trout and snook.....just not where all the grass died off.
Many things to do.
Knots to be unraveled
'fore the darkness falls on you
Since he was haedquartered out of Florida...don't you think that your argument is shaving the frogs hair kinda fine Art? :grin
Many things to do.
Knots to be unraveled
'fore the darkness falls on you
Watching "a guy take 300 jevinalle reds" sounds like total BS.
If you're not "delusional" maybe you're one of the "few bad apples in a bunch"?
You know NOBODY is going to take you seriously if you just make stupid stuff up...Right?
You WATCHED someone make 300 individual trips home....:rolleyes Very believable story! :rotflmao
Many things to do.
Knots to be unraveled
'fore the darkness falls on you
Don't grammar check his posts or you'll be here all night.
Third grade was the hardest 3 years of his life.......:rotflmao
Many things to do.
Knots to be unraveled
'fore the darkness falls on you
Or some of our fine rec fishermen running out to federal waters and catching closed fish then hopping back into state to be legal...
Say it ain't so Joe.
Notice the word " LIMIT" in that statement Art...
It makes no difference if you take your LEGAL DAILY LIMIT in one state or flyway....as long as you do not EXCEED the daily limit.
That fellow netted up 30,000 lbs I believe....and was trying to funnel it thru daddys fish house....and wasn't dad in an "official" capacity regarding rulemaking at the time?
It was a long time ago....feel free to refresh my old and failing memory.....
Many things to do.
Knots to be unraveled
'fore the darkness falls on you
I have no doubt that that happens Art.....criminals own boats....for sure.
Many things to do.
Knots to be unraveled
'fore the darkness falls on you
When I was netting BIG BREEDER REDFISH (sic) for the Florida Power Mariculture(spelling?) Center back in the 1990's (under a special activity permit from the state) I don't recall catching very many BIG BREEDER REDFISH in the shallow waters of western Fl.
I seem to recall that since there were so few BIG BREEDER REDFISH in state waters that the center ended up obtaining there BIG BREEDER REDFISH from Mote.
Just saying, though I did enjoy the look of horror on the local nimrods faces when I'd take in a large school..
BTW, said nimrods now keep the schools all busted up and scattered.
Many things to do.
Knots to be unraveled
'fore the darkness falls on you
The park service is behind the fishing closure, due to their duty to preserve (not conserve) the park for future generations. Some scientist, with too many letters after his name, is behind it with his "scientific facts" that are murky at best. & Bouncer Smith is supporting it, supposedly out of concern for the health of the fishing stocks. I've listened to all 3 speak on the subject.
The "scientist" is claiming that recreational fishing needs to be stopped because it has increased 700% while commercial fishing has remained flat. He gives no numbers on what percentage of the fish are taken by the commercial sector & what percentage is taken by the recreational section. He further supports his case by showing statistical increases in fish stocks in a selected area, after it was closed to recreational fishing. His data uses different locations for the before & after numbers. I'm pretty familiar with how statistics can be misused & this is about as rotten as it gets. When I asked him about his methods, he just said that it was all very scientific & gave no further details. He seemed to want to imply that it was all over my head & there was no use in explaining it to a simple person like me because I had no chance of understanding it. His actual problem is that I do understand it all very well.
I don't know Bouncer well enough to get a read on his actual reasons for supporting this. I can take some guesses, but guesses are not something that I want to slander somebody with, so I'll hold my opinions on that subject for the time being. I will say that I am not a big fan of his at this time, due to the position that he has chosen to take on this subject.