typical response, do nothing to commercials but add restrictions to recreational crabbers who did nothing to cause the problem and couldn't hurt the populations even if they used dynamite to fish for them.
first thing they do is say they cant limit the number of commercial fishermen or the numbers of traps they use which is pure B S.
if they can give out hundreds of gator tags every season, then they can give out hundreds of crab trap tags to be attached to the traps and at the same time, setting a max number allowed limiting commercials to only 250 traps. it will hurt at first but the numbers caught will go up quickly after these restrictions and crabbers will make more money with less traps because of better numbers and less competition.
then they need to further limit the number of crabbers like they do with oyster harvesters and have a lottery or limited licensing system to cut in half the number of commercial crabbers that are out there now. maybe limit the number of fishermen allowed to a certain amount allowed for each coastal zone.
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