I stopped in yesterday downtown on Lockwood Blvd. at the Marriot where the SEDAR 28 full benchmark assesment of the Gulf of Mexico and the South Atlantic Cobia and Spanish Mackerel is taking place.
I wasn’t planning on staying long but when I noticed there was sixty five partisapants and only four of them were fishermen and the rest was government agency personel for both the Gulf and the South Atlantic I felt concerned.
After the introduction of everyone they were split up into different rooms and groups.
I sat in on the life histroy group for the Cobia. After about ten minutes of listening to a lot of nothing I finally couldn’t take it any longer and I had to speak up. Where is your data on this species and the room sat quite.
The fact of the matter is there is such a lack of data to support trying to even do this full benchmark assesment its a joke! Here we are again with the possibilty that we will be faced with new regulations again in the future that could harm these fisheries and deni access to us because there is no solid proof or evidence of what they are trying to evaluate.
This is truly dishearting and sad. This assesemnt is going on all week. If you want to see for yourself stop by and listen you won’t believe what you are hearing.
Its absolutely ridiculous. Its the biggest waist of tax payer dollars I’ve ever seen. Go see for yourself.
CMB
Oh, and on another note my charter boat friends down in Daytona caught about ten gaffer Dolpin yesterday per boat!