Quote:
Originally Posted by capt coonassty
Its because most turtles live well over 50 years. I'm all for commercial shrimping, but the damage that they do to fisheries stocks are unimaginable.
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It was hypothesized that commercial shrimping was damaging red snapper stocks, but that hypothesis was soundly refuted by the data after increases in fuel costs and price drops (due to imported shrimp) reduced the Gulf shrimping efforts that were supposedly harming the age zero snapper.
If commercial shrimping efforts are harming fish stocks, then they should be curtailed on that basis (rather than turtles) after sound science demonstrates which species are being harmed and the time and locations of commercial shrimping efforts which are causing the harm.
As far as I can tell the present assertion that current levels of commercial shrimping effort are causing "unimaginable" harm to fisheries stocks is completely unsupported by the data. The stocks of red snapper, triple tail, speckled trout, red drum, and most other important species are very healthy in Louisiana waters and in federal waters adjacent to Louisiana. To which stocks has "unimaginable" harm been caused, and where is the supporting data piblished?