The Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Fee (LWFC) adopted a brand new Discover of Intent (NOI) to ban the waste of fishery sources. This new NOI is particularly about menhaden and the abandonment of menhaden fishing gear, reminiscent of purse seine gear, throughout business fishing operations.
The Proposed Rule:
- Prohibit abandoning menhaden purse seine gear in the course of the course of fishing operations or whereas on the water and set up a 48-hour window to take away all gear earlier than it’s thought of deserted.
- Establishes marking necessities for gear that’s launched to facilitate retrieval and warn of navigational hazards by the launched gear.
- Would require notification to LDWF inside 2 hours of any launch of menhaden.
- Requires that every one affordable makes an attempt be made to retrieve menhaden and bycatch from the atmosphere within the occasion of a launch.
- Defines {that a} violation of those guidelines shall be thought of a waste of a fishery useful resource topic to civil high quality and restitution and abandonment of drugs shall represent a business littering violation.
This new Discover of Intent by the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Fee appears to be in response to a current menhaden web abandonment by Omega Protein that occurred in Cameron Parish final month. This web was loaded with 500,000lbs of menhaden and untold quantities of bycatch reminiscent of redfish, speckled trout, and different sport fish. Although this might simply be coincidental as a result of reality many separate teams have rallied towards these massive business operations that pull in as much as 1 billion kilos of those fish out of the Gulf of Mexico yearly.
For any individuals, you possibly can submit feedback on these proposed new guidelines to Jason Adriance, Fisheries Division, Division of Wildlife and Fisheries, P.O. Field 98000, Baton Rouge, LA 70898-9000 or by way of e mail to [email protected]. These feedback have to be submitted earlier than midday of January fifth, 2023. You may see the complete Discover of Intent right here.
