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FWC approves rules to aid trap recovery
and ease restrictions on recreational fold-up traps
September 13, 2007
Contact: Lee Schlesinger, (850) 487-0554
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation
Commission (FWC) approved rules on Thursday to make it easier to
recover or remove lobster and crab traps from state waters under
certain conditions. The FWC also passed a rule to allow
recreational fishers to use fold-up traps of any shape to
harvest blue crabs.
The new rules will help spiny lobster, stone
crab and blue crab fishers recover their traps following major
storms by letting licensed trap fishers designate people to
recover and possess their traps when the governor and FWC
declare an emergency.
The rules also exempt local, state or federal
officials from having to get FWC approval before removing traps
and trap debris from areas where trapping is prohibited and
modify the current definition of a derelict trap to account for
a requirement that blue crab traps must now be marked with FWC
trap tags.
In addition, the Commission approved rules to
allow recreational fishers to use fold-up blue crab traps up to
one cubic foot in volume that are not necessarily pyramid-shaped
and delete a current provision limiting the base panel of
fold-up traps to one square foot.
"These rules will help commercial fishers work
together to recover traps after major storms, make it easier for
officials to remove illegal traps and debris from places where
they aren’t allowed, and let recreational fishers use more than
one kind of fold-up trap to catch blue crabs,” said FWC Chairman
Rodney Barreto. |
