MPA
06/15/2003, 10:23 AM
Greetings, I live in central Florida. More specifically Brevard county. The eastern most part of the county is a set of barrior islands along the Atlantic. This is a topic that is hilighted By Jim Waymer in the Florida Today 05-15-03 newspaper.
"As the state debates extending protection for the Oculina Bank off the Brevard coast, the bigger question appears to be how to stop fishermen from poaching in the area."
On Monday, the 15-member South Atlantic Fishery Management Council will hear the public's opinion on whether 92 square miles of the reef, from Fort Pierce to Sebastian Inlet, should stay closed to bottom fishing for another decade, or longer. The council plans to decide Thursday.
Hopefully some of you may be touched by what you are about to read and take part in preserving this reef that is being destroyed.
Anglers relish the thought of once again fishing a rare reef set aside adecade ago as a safe haven for grouper and snapper.
Despite a 10-year ban on bottom fishing, gear, lines, anchors and nets still drag where plump fish and hearty rock shrimp swim a deep, jagged labyrinth of dark hiding places.
Fishermen can't resist chasing their bounty to the Oculina Bank's edges, sometimes farther. Nets and line topple the brittle coral, which takes thousands of years to form.
Regulators want to keep the reef closed to grouper and snapper fishing, but not so long that it's considered safe from destruction, and therefore unworthy of further research.
But some anglers hope to reopen the reef, to once again cast for the big game.
"I think they ought to open it up to the bottom fisherman, because you're not going to anchor in that deep of water," said Berry Corzine, a fishing charter captain for AA Sport fishing in Port Canaveral.
On Monday, the 15-member South Atlantic Fishery Management Council will hear the public's opinion on whether 92 square miles of the reef, from Fort Pierce to Sebastian Inlet, should stay closed to bottom fishing for another decade, or longer. The council plans to decide Thursday.
The rest of the coral habitat to the north is closed for use of bottom longlines, trawls, dredges, pots or traps. Anglers fear the grouper and snapper ban could someday extend to the rest of the protection area.
Global significance
They say they won't anchor there or harm the reef. But scientists who study the Oculina Bank say it should remain off limits. It is of global significance, they say, irreplaceable shelter for thousands of species of fish, shrimp, worms, crabs and other sea life. Grouper and snapper forage and spawn there for safety and the diversity of food. The coral is the linchpin for the rock shrimp industry, which began at the Port Canaveral. The reef helps support a $10.4 billion sport fishing industry from North Carolina to Florida and another $998 million in commercial fishing.
"It's a world treasure, there's nothing else in the world like it," said John Reed, a scientist at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution in Fort Pierce.
The reef is home to Oculina varicosa coral, which grows about 30 miles offshore, from Fort Pierce to Daytona Beach. It grows on ancient limestone ridges at depths of 200 to 300 feet. It's thought to exist only here, because of the unique mix of rich plankton from the Gulf Stream and cold water upwelling from the Florida Straits.
But only 20 percent of the original coral remains, much of it demolished by decades of shrimp trawls and other bottom-fishing gear.
In 1994, the federal government closed the reef, from Fort Pierce to Sebastian, to any bottom-tending fishing gear, such as trawls, dredges and fish traps. Two years later, it also banned fishing boats from anchoring on the reef.
Its destruction is more significant than that of other coral, because it grows so slowly.
While shallow-water coral branches out as much as 10 inches a year, Oculina coral grows about a half-inch. It sprouts into 3- to 5-foot-long branches about the diameter of a human finger. A volleyball-sized coral bush can host up to 2,000 sea critters.
Poaching continues
Fishing and shrimping boats continue to poach the closed portions of the reef.
Reed saw more evidence of that last month.
"Virtually every reef out there has fishing line wrapped around it," Reed said.
"These corals are hundreds to thousands of years old. If crushed, it will take decades if not hundreds of years to grow back," he said.
Even fishing weights can break off branches of the fragile coral, biologists say.
Corzine doubts whether that's a significant impact.
"You're using a little itty-bitty piece of lead," he said.
Sport fisherman say they won't harm the reef. They blame its destruction on shrimpers who they say still illegally drag nets through the area.
"Our general consensus is that we'd like it to be available to be fished but not to be drug," said Corzine, who belongs to an association of charter captains at Port Canaveral eager to fish the reef.
Ted Forsgren supports extending the ban but fears future attempts to ban trolling for other pelagic, or deep-sea fish, in the region.
"We don't have a problem with them extending what had been the original agreement, provided fisherman are still allowed to fish for the pelagics," said Forsgren, executive director of the Coastal Conservation Association, a group of about 10,000 saltwater anglers. "There's always someone lurking around that wants to eliminate all fishing."
Vital habitat
But scientists say reopening the Oculina to bottom fishing would further destroy a priceless reef and vital grouper spawning habitat.
The reef is a crumbled shell of what it was 30 years ago, when scientists such as Grant Gilmore saw herds of huge fish. "Grouper's in serious trouble," said Gilmore, a biologist with Dynamac Corp., a consultant to NASA.
"I think we need to wait until the grouper populations come back," said Gilmore, who wants the bottom-fishing ban extended another 10 years.
While some fish have shown signs of recovery, others such as the speckled hind grouper are pushing extinction.
"If you started bottom fishing again, I think you'd be sure that the speckled hind would disappear totally," Gilmore said.
The fishery council will consider several options, from letting the closure expire in June of 2004 to extending it for up to 50 years. They're leaning toward another 10-year closure, said George Geiger, a council member from Sebastian.
A longer closure might limit future federal money to study the reef, he said, since it would already be considered protected.
"If you just make it a protected area forever, you're never going to get money to conduct research," Geiger said.
Minimal enforcement
Despite a decade of protection, fishing boats continue to encroach on the reef.
"There's very minimal surveillance and enforcement out there," Reed said.
Last month, he and Gilmore spotted new branches of live coral offshore from Melbourne. They also found trawl nets on the bottom as well as the marks the nets leave behind.
"We saw several nets on the bottom," Reed said. "There are still a few people ignoring the reserve."
The protected area is clearly marked on federal navigation charts, Geiger said.
"It's hard for me to believe people do not know where they're at," said Geiger, a Sebastian fishing guide.
"We've got to do a better job of closing the enforcement loop and the research loop," he said.
Geiger plans to push the council this week to send a letter to the federal government, asking for more money to enforce the closure.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission plans to patrol the reef with a new 65-foot boat this year.
Enforcement of the closed area is typically handled by the Coast Guard, which has been preoccupied with new homeland security details.
"There's no way to have a cop on every square mile of ocean," Geiger said.
To Reed, who's studied the reef for 30 years, it's worth saving.
"This Oculina habitat only occurs here, and it's up to us to protect it," he said.
Underwater ears may monitor reef
Manmade underwater ears could temper the lawlessness of the sea and save a rare reef, scientists say.
"We would be able to know who's doing what out there, real-time," said Grant Gilmore, a biologist with Dynamac Corp., a consultant to NASA.
"We would know when a boat dropped its anchor. We would know when a certain lure went by," he said.
Last month, Gilmore and two engineers from the space agency tested sound monitors that can hear fish grunts, boat engines and other sounds of the sea. The experiment put them one step closer to realizing a network of high-tech monitors to police the vulnerable Oculina Bank reef.
"We know it works, the next step would be something permanent," Gilmore said.
He is working with Steven Van Meter and Michael Lane, two NASA robotic specialists developing prototypes that detect fish grunts, boat sounds and whatever else makes noise underwater.
If funding falls in place, they plan to put a network of monitors along the reef's most critical fish-spawning areas within two years, Van Meter said. "We'd probably start out with one set up, or buoy, and six or seven bottom units," he said.
That would cover 5 to 10 miles of the reef. It could be done for $100,000 to $200,000, Gilmore said.
The network of underwater monitors would hear boats fishing illegally over the reef, send a signal to a surface buoy, then to shore.
While acoustics have been used extensively to study marine mammals, few have used it to study or manage fish populations, Gilmore said.
"We're trying to get the country to see the ability of acoustics to monitor fisheries," he said. "Everybody knows that Flipper produces sound, and the whales, but they don't know that fish produce sound, and that's part of the problem."
Last month, Gilmore and the NASA engineers tested the monitors on a few spots along the Oculina. They heard a NASA ship from about five miles away. They heard grouper making low-pitched bellows to each other.
"We got probably the best recordings I've ever heard of ocean sounds," Gilmore said.
The remaining hurdle is how to transmit the sounds, real-time, to law enforcement, Van Meter said. "We can record the sounds, but now we have to meet that challenge to get that information to someone who can analyze it and do something about it," he said.
They also envision a network of 12 to 15 of the monitors scattered throughout the Indian River Lagoon, with a complement of periodic, self-propelled robots.
The monitors conceivably could enforce manatee protection zones in the lagoon. Offshore, they could stay where the Coast Guard can't always be, nabbing commercial fishermen who enter restricted areas.
The researchers say the monitors would complement ongoing law enforcement efforts along the Oculina.
This year, to limit shrimp boats near the reef, the National Marine Fisheries Service required rock shrimpers to obtain special permits -- the first such action in the south Atlantic.
Starting Oct. 14, rock shrimpers also must mount satellite transmitters on their boats to signal marine law enforcement to their position. Enforcement and lack of monitoring the Oculina led to its continued destruction in the past decade, despite federal closure.
"We really don't know how good that moratorium has been, when you don't know how many people are fishing out there," said John Reed, a biologist with Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution in Fort Pierce.
"One pass of a trawl net would destroy thousands of years of coral," Reed said. "They're destroying it for everybody."
Gilmore says the know-how exists to stop the destruction.
"It's not like it's technology that hasn't been developed yet. It just hasn't been used," he said.
"As the state debates extending protection for the Oculina Bank off the Brevard coast, the bigger question appears to be how to stop fishermen from poaching in the area."
On Monday, the 15-member South Atlantic Fishery Management Council will hear the public's opinion on whether 92 square miles of the reef, from Fort Pierce to Sebastian Inlet, should stay closed to bottom fishing for another decade, or longer. The council plans to decide Thursday.
Hopefully some of you may be touched by what you are about to read and take part in preserving this reef that is being destroyed.
Anglers relish the thought of once again fishing a rare reef set aside adecade ago as a safe haven for grouper and snapper.
Despite a 10-year ban on bottom fishing, gear, lines, anchors and nets still drag where plump fish and hearty rock shrimp swim a deep, jagged labyrinth of dark hiding places.
Fishermen can't resist chasing their bounty to the Oculina Bank's edges, sometimes farther. Nets and line topple the brittle coral, which takes thousands of years to form.
Regulators want to keep the reef closed to grouper and snapper fishing, but not so long that it's considered safe from destruction, and therefore unworthy of further research.
But some anglers hope to reopen the reef, to once again cast for the big game.
"I think they ought to open it up to the bottom fisherman, because you're not going to anchor in that deep of water," said Berry Corzine, a fishing charter captain for AA Sport fishing in Port Canaveral.
On Monday, the 15-member South Atlantic Fishery Management Council will hear the public's opinion on whether 92 square miles of the reef, from Fort Pierce to Sebastian Inlet, should stay closed to bottom fishing for another decade, or longer. The council plans to decide Thursday.
The rest of the coral habitat to the north is closed for use of bottom longlines, trawls, dredges, pots or traps. Anglers fear the grouper and snapper ban could someday extend to the rest of the protection area.
Global significance
They say they won't anchor there or harm the reef. But scientists who study the Oculina Bank say it should remain off limits. It is of global significance, they say, irreplaceable shelter for thousands of species of fish, shrimp, worms, crabs and other sea life. Grouper and snapper forage and spawn there for safety and the diversity of food. The coral is the linchpin for the rock shrimp industry, which began at the Port Canaveral. The reef helps support a $10.4 billion sport fishing industry from North Carolina to Florida and another $998 million in commercial fishing.
"It's a world treasure, there's nothing else in the world like it," said John Reed, a scientist at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution in Fort Pierce.
The reef is home to Oculina varicosa coral, which grows about 30 miles offshore, from Fort Pierce to Daytona Beach. It grows on ancient limestone ridges at depths of 200 to 300 feet. It's thought to exist only here, because of the unique mix of rich plankton from the Gulf Stream and cold water upwelling from the Florida Straits.
But only 20 percent of the original coral remains, much of it demolished by decades of shrimp trawls and other bottom-fishing gear.
In 1994, the federal government closed the reef, from Fort Pierce to Sebastian, to any bottom-tending fishing gear, such as trawls, dredges and fish traps. Two years later, it also banned fishing boats from anchoring on the reef.
Its destruction is more significant than that of other coral, because it grows so slowly.
While shallow-water coral branches out as much as 10 inches a year, Oculina coral grows about a half-inch. It sprouts into 3- to 5-foot-long branches about the diameter of a human finger. A volleyball-sized coral bush can host up to 2,000 sea critters.
Poaching continues
Fishing and shrimping boats continue to poach the closed portions of the reef.
Reed saw more evidence of that last month.
"Virtually every reef out there has fishing line wrapped around it," Reed said.
"These corals are hundreds to thousands of years old. If crushed, it will take decades if not hundreds of years to grow back," he said.
Even fishing weights can break off branches of the fragile coral, biologists say.
Corzine doubts whether that's a significant impact.
"You're using a little itty-bitty piece of lead," he said.
Sport fisherman say they won't harm the reef. They blame its destruction on shrimpers who they say still illegally drag nets through the area.
"Our general consensus is that we'd like it to be available to be fished but not to be drug," said Corzine, who belongs to an association of charter captains at Port Canaveral eager to fish the reef.
Ted Forsgren supports extending the ban but fears future attempts to ban trolling for other pelagic, or deep-sea fish, in the region.
"We don't have a problem with them extending what had been the original agreement, provided fisherman are still allowed to fish for the pelagics," said Forsgren, executive director of the Coastal Conservation Association, a group of about 10,000 saltwater anglers. "There's always someone lurking around that wants to eliminate all fishing."
Vital habitat
But scientists say reopening the Oculina to bottom fishing would further destroy a priceless reef and vital grouper spawning habitat.
The reef is a crumbled shell of what it was 30 years ago, when scientists such as Grant Gilmore saw herds of huge fish. "Grouper's in serious trouble," said Gilmore, a biologist with Dynamac Corp., a consultant to NASA.
"I think we need to wait until the grouper populations come back," said Gilmore, who wants the bottom-fishing ban extended another 10 years.
While some fish have shown signs of recovery, others such as the speckled hind grouper are pushing extinction.
"If you started bottom fishing again, I think you'd be sure that the speckled hind would disappear totally," Gilmore said.
The fishery council will consider several options, from letting the closure expire in June of 2004 to extending it for up to 50 years. They're leaning toward another 10-year closure, said George Geiger, a council member from Sebastian.
A longer closure might limit future federal money to study the reef, he said, since it would already be considered protected.
"If you just make it a protected area forever, you're never going to get money to conduct research," Geiger said.
Minimal enforcement
Despite a decade of protection, fishing boats continue to encroach on the reef.
"There's very minimal surveillance and enforcement out there," Reed said.
Last month, he and Gilmore spotted new branches of live coral offshore from Melbourne. They also found trawl nets on the bottom as well as the marks the nets leave behind.
"We saw several nets on the bottom," Reed said. "There are still a few people ignoring the reserve."
The protected area is clearly marked on federal navigation charts, Geiger said.
"It's hard for me to believe people do not know where they're at," said Geiger, a Sebastian fishing guide.
"We've got to do a better job of closing the enforcement loop and the research loop," he said.
Geiger plans to push the council this week to send a letter to the federal government, asking for more money to enforce the closure.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission plans to patrol the reef with a new 65-foot boat this year.
Enforcement of the closed area is typically handled by the Coast Guard, which has been preoccupied with new homeland security details.
"There's no way to have a cop on every square mile of ocean," Geiger said.
To Reed, who's studied the reef for 30 years, it's worth saving.
"This Oculina habitat only occurs here, and it's up to us to protect it," he said.
Underwater ears may monitor reef
Manmade underwater ears could temper the lawlessness of the sea and save a rare reef, scientists say.
"We would be able to know who's doing what out there, real-time," said Grant Gilmore, a biologist with Dynamac Corp., a consultant to NASA.
"We would know when a boat dropped its anchor. We would know when a certain lure went by," he said.
Last month, Gilmore and two engineers from the space agency tested sound monitors that can hear fish grunts, boat engines and other sounds of the sea. The experiment put them one step closer to realizing a network of high-tech monitors to police the vulnerable Oculina Bank reef.
"We know it works, the next step would be something permanent," Gilmore said.
He is working with Steven Van Meter and Michael Lane, two NASA robotic specialists developing prototypes that detect fish grunts, boat sounds and whatever else makes noise underwater.
If funding falls in place, they plan to put a network of monitors along the reef's most critical fish-spawning areas within two years, Van Meter said. "We'd probably start out with one set up, or buoy, and six or seven bottom units," he said.
That would cover 5 to 10 miles of the reef. It could be done for $100,000 to $200,000, Gilmore said.
The network of underwater monitors would hear boats fishing illegally over the reef, send a signal to a surface buoy, then to shore.
While acoustics have been used extensively to study marine mammals, few have used it to study or manage fish populations, Gilmore said.
"We're trying to get the country to see the ability of acoustics to monitor fisheries," he said. "Everybody knows that Flipper produces sound, and the whales, but they don't know that fish produce sound, and that's part of the problem."
Last month, Gilmore and the NASA engineers tested the monitors on a few spots along the Oculina. They heard a NASA ship from about five miles away. They heard grouper making low-pitched bellows to each other.
"We got probably the best recordings I've ever heard of ocean sounds," Gilmore said.
The remaining hurdle is how to transmit the sounds, real-time, to law enforcement, Van Meter said. "We can record the sounds, but now we have to meet that challenge to get that information to someone who can analyze it and do something about it," he said.
They also envision a network of 12 to 15 of the monitors scattered throughout the Indian River Lagoon, with a complement of periodic, self-propelled robots.
The monitors conceivably could enforce manatee protection zones in the lagoon. Offshore, they could stay where the Coast Guard can't always be, nabbing commercial fishermen who enter restricted areas.
The researchers say the monitors would complement ongoing law enforcement efforts along the Oculina.
This year, to limit shrimp boats near the reef, the National Marine Fisheries Service required rock shrimpers to obtain special permits -- the first such action in the south Atlantic.
Starting Oct. 14, rock shrimpers also must mount satellite transmitters on their boats to signal marine law enforcement to their position. Enforcement and lack of monitoring the Oculina led to its continued destruction in the past decade, despite federal closure.
"We really don't know how good that moratorium has been, when you don't know how many people are fishing out there," said John Reed, a biologist with Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution in Fort Pierce.
"One pass of a trawl net would destroy thousands of years of coral," Reed said. "They're destroying it for everybody."
Gilmore says the know-how exists to stop the destruction.
"It's not like it's technology that hasn't been developed yet. It just hasn't been used," he said.