October 16, 2019
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Farris Bryant Building 620 S. Meridian St. Tallahassee, FL 32399-1600
Submitted via website: MyFWC.com/SaltwaterComments.
Dear Sirs:
After attending the October 2nd Public Fish and Wildlife Commission Meeting as well as an individual FWC Staff meeting in Tallahassee led by Jessica McCawley, I am writing again on behalf of Florida’s recreational diving community to express grave concerns regarding the FWC Staff’s proposed 2019 Fisheries Management Plan and regulatory recommendations for Biscayne National Park (BNP).
The Diving Equipment and Marketing Association (DEMA) is the trade association for the recreational scuba diving and snorkeling industries and represents professional members and diving consumers all over Florida.1
As we have repeatedly stated, DEMA shares the FWC’s goal of taking steps to improve the size and abundance of the fisheries in BNP. That is why we have worked alongside NOAA on similar attempts at managing marine resources in the Keys, the Dry Tortugas, and in other locations around the country.
We remain seriously concerned with the current FWC staff recommendations to restrict lobstering in designated “Coral Reef Protected Areas” (CRPAs) in Biscayne National Park. On review, we believe the data which FWC staff cites to recommend these lobstering restrictions in BNP does NOT warrant the restrictions being proposed. Additionally, we believe that peer- reviewed data on spear fishing inside BNP has been disregarded in favor of a National Park Service survey, with the goal to implement restrictions on spear fishing in the Park; restrictions that would prevent spearing while using breathing gas delivery systems such as scuba. Data does not support either of these proposed restrictions.
1DEMA has more than 1,400 business members worldwide, more than 300 of which are in Florida. DEMA represents the interests of diving manufacturers, diver training organizations, the diving-related magazines and media, diving retailers and dive travel and dive charter operators, as well as diving consumers. DEMA produces the annual DEMA trade show, this year bringing more than 10,000 diving professionals to Florida to conduct business. Many will remain after the four-day event to dive in Florida’s waters of the gulf, freshwater springs and ocean, including in Biscayne National Park. DEMA’s mission is to bring businesses together to grow the diving industry worldwide, and our goals include promoting recreational scuba diving and snorkeling, while at the same time protecting the underwater environment and its countless marine species.
• Diving Equipment and Marketing Association • 6050 Santo Road Suite 220 • San Diego • CA • 92124 • PH: 858-616-6408 • Fax: 858-616-6495 • Closing the Coral Reef Protected Areas (CRPAs) to Lobstering If hook and line or other forms of fishing are to remain open in the CRPAs, there is little justification for, and little good to be achieved by, closing lobstering in these areas. The focus should be on the very issues correctly cited in the FWC Staff presentation dated July 19, 2019; fishing pressure, along with pollution caused by proximity to urban areas, reduced water quality, and marine debris.
The concept of closing the CRPAs to lobstering seems to have evolved when push back was received on closing BNP to divers completely for the annual two-day lobster mini season. In turn, the origins of recommending mini-season closure seem to have roots in research which was cited by FWC and National Park Service (NPS) staff in Public Workshops held in South Florida during the week of August 5 and again during the during the October 2nd Public FWC meeting; research conducted by Mark Lewis Hartman in 2012 as part of a Masters’ degree-level thesis.2 We believe this research does NOT point to a closure of the two-day lobster mini-season in BNP, and in fact downplays the damage potential of divers participating in the two-day mini-season, calling into question the concept of closing CRPAs to lobstering.
The Hartman research compares Middle Sambo Reef, which is open to lobstering and fishing, to two other reefs; Western Sambo Reef, a nine square mile reef open only to “research” and Eastern Sambo Reef, a 0.62 square mile reef open for diving and designated as a “no-take zone.” Indeed, the researcher himself states the following (emphasis added):
“While significant differences in the levels of damage were documented between protected reefs and those open to lobstering, the incidences of damage to the benthos were relatively low. Moreover, despite the Western Sambos popularity among commercial dive boats and recreational SCUBA divers, the incidences of damage on this heavily used reef averaged 1.2 observations per 30-minute survey and were not significantly different from that recorded on the research-only Eastern Sambos reef. Thus, the 60% increase of incidences of benthic damage on the Middle Sambos reef just after the lobster mini-season is more striking in percentage than in absolute magnitude…”
Quoting further from the Hartman research (emphasis added), “Clearly, direct damage by divers participating in the mini-season is presently not a significant cause of reef decline in the Florida reef tract, and other factors associated with human activities are much more likely to be detrimental.”
Obviously, Hartman agrees with FWC Staff’s initial contention that, the focus should be on other issues; fishing pressure, along with pollution caused by proximity to urban areas, reduced water quality, and marine debris.
Mr. Hartman’s research also indicates that, “Given the nine-fold increase in boats observed on the study reef during the mini-season, the more than doubling increase in the incidences of damage indicates that only a small percentage of lobster fishers are impacting the reef.”
2 Hartman, Mark Lewis, “Assessment of Diver Impact During the Spiny Lobster Sport Season, Florida Keys, USA" (2012). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/4330
Conclusions reached in the Hartman research indicate a TOTAL of 67 incidents attributable to the time period of the two-day lobster mini season, with an average damage area of 0.21 square feet each. In total, on Middle Sambo Reef, less than 14 square feet of “damage” was observed.
Total Incidences Total Incidences Difference: Average Size of Calculated Damage After of Damage of Damage Damage After Benthic Damage TOTAL Damage minus Damage Reef Site Observed Observed AFTER minus Damage Observed AFTER Units Units Units Observed After Before Lobster BEFORE Lobster Lobster Mini- Before Lobster Loster Mini- Lobster Season Mini-season Mini-Season Season Mini-season season
129.8 sq cm 4,283.4 sq cm -389.4 sq cm Eastern Sambos 36 33 -3 20.77 sq in 685.3 sq in -62.3 sq in (Research Only) 0.145 sq ft 4.8 sq ft -0.4 sq ft 116 sq cm 7,192.0 sq cm 2,204.0 sq cm Western Sambos 43 62 19 18.56 sq in 1150.7 sq in 352.6 sq in (No Take Zone) 0.13 sq ft 8.1 sq ft 2.5 sq ft Middle Sambos 184.5 sq cm 20,664.0 sq cm 12,361.5 sq cm (Lobstering and 45 112 67 29.52 sq in 3,306.2 sq in 1,977.8 sq in Fishing Allowed) 0.207 sq ft 23.1 sq ft 13.8 sq ft Source: Hartman, Mark Lewis, “Assessment of Diver Impact During the Spiny Lobster Sport Season, Florida Keys, USA" (2012). Graduate Theses and Dissertations.
The makeup of the “damage” cited in this research is also notable; non-living substrate accounted for 24% of all recorded “damage,” and 20% of the damage (46% of the “coral” damage) was made up of fire coral. Fire coral is in the same phylum as coral, Cnidaria, and is a distant relative, but fire coral is part of a class of creatures known as hydrozoans, more closely related to jellyfish than true corals.
About 1% of the observed damage was made up of staghorn and elkhorn corals. While divers are unlikely to damage these corals intentionally and certainly should avoid contact, studies have concluded that approximately 4% coral damage is considered to be ecologically sustainable (Hawkins and Roberts, 19973; Hawkins et al.,19994; Jameson et al., 19995).
Based on spiny lobster landings data (R. Muller, unpublished data; Sharp et al. 2005 as cited in Hartman), total recreational harvest of lobsters during the 2-day sport-diver mini-season accounts for ∼3.5% of total annual commercial and recreational landings. Even though the landings for mini-season are small in comparison to the overall lobstering industry, lobster mini- season in Florida is attended and enjoyed by some 50,0002 persons annually, many of them in Biscayne National Park.
In addition to generating state licensing fees, these divers and their families generate revenue for local hotels, restaurants and transportation services, as well as generating revenue directly for diving operations, all of which creates jobs for citizens, and tax revenues for the state of Florida.
3 Hawkins, J.P. and C.M. Roberts, 1997, Estimating the carrying capacity of coral reefs for SCUBA diving, p. 1923-1926. In: H.A. Lessios and I.G. Macintyre (eds.) Proceedings of the 8th International Coral Reef Symposium Vol. 2. Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama. 4 Hawkins, J.P., Roberts, C.M., van't Hof, T., de Meyer, K., Tratalos, J.A., Aldam, C. (1999). "Effects of recreational scuba diving on Caribbean coral and fish communities."Conservation Biology 13: 888-897. 5 Jameson, S. C., Ammar, M.S.A., Saadalla, E., Mostafa, H.M., Riegl, B. (1999). 11A coral damage index and its application to diving sites in the Egyptian Red Sea. 11 Coral Reefs 18: 333-339. Closing lobstering in the CRPAs, especially the lobster mini season, puts these revenues and jobs at risk, as divers go elsewhere to enjoy lobster mini season or lobstering during the remainder of the regular lobster season. This unwarranted restriction closes these areas in the Park to family activities, especially those families living in South Florida, where parents can currently interact in this healthy and enjoyable pastime with their children, encouraging them to dive, and creating a lifetime of family-based memories.
The reality is that this small number of lobster landings by divers, coupled with the research findings that, “…direct damage by divers participating in the mini-season is presently not a significant cause of reef decline in the Florida reef tract, and other factors associated with human activities are much more likely to be detrimental2,” combine to indicate that the origins of the proposal to close the CRPAs to lobstering, or to discontinue the lobster mini- season in BNP, all while continuing to permit hook and line fishing in these areas DO NOT address the real problems of fishing pressure, pollution, reduced water quality and marine debris.
We ask that if the Commission continues to permit hook and line fishing in the CRPAs that LOBSTERING SHOULD ALSO BE PERMITTED. Please do not place the burden of Biscayne National Park’s recovery on divers and others harvesting lobster in these areas of the Park.
Spear Fishing FWC Staff recommendations to continue permitting hook and line fishing while CLOSING SPEAR FISHING to those divers in BNP using air delivery devices such as scuba or surface- supplied hookah, appear to have evolved from push back received on previous FWC recommendations that spearing fish should be restricted in the Park in some manner; fishers would either be prevented from using air delivery devices or prevented from using triggering devices, while spearing. FWC has cited NPS creel surveys to indicate that fishers using spears are more likely to take undersized fish, but regrettably has marginalized previously-conducted peer-reviewed research6 conducted in BNP which refutes this claim.
Harper et. al. indicates that spearing accounts for 10.3% of the landings in Biscayne National Park and, contrary to the cited NPS creel surveys, states that, “spear fishing was more selective than angling.” Harper also noted that, “…although spearfishing targeted some of the same species as anglers, the total landings from spearfishing was only a small portion of the total landings from hook and line fishing.” For some species, Harper also indicates that fish taken by spear tend to be larger than those taken by angling. This peer-reviewed data on spearing, specifically studied inside BNP, is different than creel surveys presented by the NPS, and does not support the claims that spear fishers take more undersized fish.
As stated in the FWC staff presentation of October 2, 2019, the goal in recommending elimination of air delivery devices while spearing is to “…reduce the harvest of undersized fish” taken by this manner of fishing. Even if peer-reviewed data supported this premise (which it does not) common sense dictates that eliminating the use of scuba or other air delivery devices while spearing, or using other proposed restrictions, will only make it more difficult to target the correctly sized fish; this will have exactly the opposite impact FWC seems to be seeking.
Angling has been shown in peer-reviewed research to be less selective and to take smaller fish than those taken by fishing with a spear, and spear fishers are required pay the same fees and are held to the same bag and size limits as anglers. DEMA asks the Commission to prevent
6 Harper, D.E. & Bohnsack, James & Lockwood, B.R. (2000). Recreational fisheries in Biscayne National Park, Florida, 1976-1991. Marine Fisheries Review. 62. 8-26. the closure of spear fishing to divers using an air delivery device, especially while no restrictions are applied to hook and line fishing in these same locations.
Thank you for your consideration of these important issues.
Sincerely,
Tom Ingram President and CEO cc: Eric Sutton, Executive Director, Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission Ms. Jessica McCawley, FWC Bob L. Harris, Esq., Tallahassee DEMA Board of Directors