The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is urging the Gulf of Mexico Federal Fisheries Management Council to prohibit the use of bottom longlines to harvest red, gag and black grouper inside of 50 fathoms off of Florida's west coast.

"The Commission took a strong conservation position on the issue," said Ted Forsgren, CCA Florida Executive Director. "Eliminating the bottom longline gear is really the only viable way to restore the red grouper stocks."

Bottom longlining for grouper is already prohibited inside of 50 fathoms (300 ft.) in the rest of the Gulf of Mexico west of Cape San Blas, Florida and the entire Atlantic Coast from Florida to North Carolina. Scientific assessment has determined that Gulf red grouper stocks are seriously overfished and federal law requires the Gulf Council to adopt measures to stop the overfishing by October 2001. The commercial fishing industry takes 87% of the Gulf red grouper, recreational fishers take 13%. In 1999, commercial bottom longlines took 66% of the total commercial take of red grouper.

The federal red grouper stock assessment indicates that bottom longline gear was not used in the fishery until the early 1980's. The assessment states that, "the number of vessels employing bottom longline gear grew rapidly from none in 1979 to a maximum of about 300 by 1989." Bottom longline boats put out mainlines many miles long with hundreds to thousands of baited hooks.

"Longline gear takes much more grouper at a faster rate than traditional commercial hook and line gear," said Forsgren. "And that is exactly why the overfishing has occurred." The final action on the issue will be taken in July by the Gulf Council, which has representatives from all the Gulf States. However, the recommendation of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission is considered to be extremely important because 95% of all the commercial and recreational red and gag grouper taken in the Gulf are landed in Florida.

FWC Commissioner Edwin Roberts offered a two-part motion stating that the FWC's preferred option was

1) to prohibit the use of bottom longlines inside of 50 fathoms and

2) that the FWC would support the concept of congressional action to buy-out the longline boats that may not want to convert to hook and line gear and remain in the fishery. After some discussion and debate the motion was unanimously approved.