East Side your Limit drop is comming

[Reefman]

Originally Posted by TarponTom

What many people don't realize is the cleanup crews are picking up between 700 to 900 pounds of oil every single day on Fourchon Beach, & Elmers Island alone. Every the tide goes out oil balls are all over the beaches again. I have also seen a significant reduction in the menhaden population in the Lake P, Borgne, and Venice areas. The population is easily 1/2 of what it was in 2005 and I'm positive this is due to the oil spill and corexit.

A reduced creel limit of trout to 5 per person with strict minimum and maximum size limits will occur within the next 48 months. The trout & menhaden aren't the only fish to have taken a hit either--the flounder fishery is in real trouble.

TT brings up the heart of the issue. The East side, for what ever reason, is suffering lower catch rates. The rest of us, west side/central coast will be effected in that what ever happens there will be inflicted on the rest of the coast. This will make it far easier to enforce creel limits for LWF. East dictates to the rest of us because of its political muscle. Granted there are real issues facing the east side but perhaps we should isolate this area and fully concentrate efforts toward improving fish stocks/habitat. Areas west of Cocodrie were not adversely effected by BP spill. With that the central and west side should be monitored to compare population densities along with fishing success rates.
Even with high river stages this past spring, the central areas had good to great fishing...from my experiences. Going half cocked to cut down on creel limits in un-effected areas is poor management, but easy to implement, imo.

[MathGeek]

Originally Posted by Reefman

Even with high river stages this past spring, the central areas had good to great fishing...from my experiences. Going half cocked to cut down on creel limits in un-effected areas is poor management, but easy to implement, imo.

I think the long term interests of the fishery are best served by pressing LDWF to document the science and explain their data and reasoning behind any limit changes. A long term limit change would be a bad response to a short term circumstance. Even if one has full confidence in the current LDWF biologists, I still think the public good is best served by close examination of the science to verify that the decisions are well considered and data driven. After all, the next group of biologists may not be as trustworthy as the current group. What if the NOAA/Vision 2020 types end up employed as future LDWF biologists? It would be better to have a pattern established of being open with the data and scientific reasoning. There needs to be accountability both to the general public and to independent scientific analysis of the data and decision making process.

[Reefman]

Originally Posted by MathGeek

I think the long term interests of the fishery are best served by pressing LDWF to document the science and explain their data and reasoning behind any limit changes. A long term limit change would be a bad response to a short term circumstance. Even if one has full confidence in the current LDWF biologists, I still think the public good is best served by close examination of the science to verify that the decisions are well considered and data driven. After all, the next group of biologists may not be as trustworthy as the current group. What if the NOAA/Vision 2020 types end up employed as future LDWF biologists? It would be better to have a pattern established of being open with the data and scientific reasoning. There needs to be accountability both to the general public and to independent scientific analysis of the data and decision making process.

Here's where I become skeptical MathGeek. There are tons of scientific studies that have been conducted by independent as well as LWF biologists concerning the BP spill. Most, if not all studies are not public! Most all have a gag order because of litigations on-going with BP. We, as citizens, are again in the dark as to exactly what did all that oil and dispersant's do to our fish stocks and environment in the affected areas.

[Duck Butter]

Originally Posted by Reefman

Here's where I become skeptical MathGeek. There are tons of scientific studies that have been conducted by independent as well as LWF biologists concerning the BP spill. Most, if not all studies are not public! Most all have a gag order because of litigations on-going with BP. We, as citizens, are again in the dark as to exactly what did all that oil and dispersant's do to our fish stocks and environment in the affected areas.

The studies are not going to come out until the litigation is all over. There are however plenty of studies on Corexit and its toxicity in the environment dating back to the 1970s. You can go to google scholar scholar.google.com and type in Corexit and you will get many hits.