Amelia Island Fishing News

FWC Approves Blue Crab Management Rules

December 1, 2005
CONTACT: Lee Schlesinger (850) 487-0554

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) today approved blue crab rule amendments requested by commercial fishermen regarding the blue crab effort management program. The FWC also approved creating an incidental take endorsement for blue crab.

Last April, the FWC approved a rule designed to control growth and overcapitalization of the commercial blue crab fishery by managing the number of fishermen and traps. The rule, recommended by FWC’s Blue Crab Advisory Board, established a blue crab limited entry endorsement program that limits the total number of commercial blue crab fishermen and allows each qualified fisherman to use up to an equal number of traps.

This program includes certain qualifying criteria (based upon reported blue crab landings over a specified period) for fishermen to obtain an endorsement which allows them to commercially harvest blue crabs.

The program also requires all blue crab traps to be tagged and allows the transfer of endorsements to other persons under specified conditions. Fees to support this program, which begins in the 2006-2007 license year, must be approved by the 2006 Florida Legislature.

The rules approved today by the FWC allow qualified fishermen affected by the 1995 net limitation amendment, and stone crab and shrimp fishermen who harvest blue crabs as bycatch in their fishing gear, to obtain a non-transferable blue crab limited entry endorsement. This lets displaced net fishermen use up to 100 traps to harvest hard shell blue crabs, and gives shrimpers and stone crabbers a daily bycatch allowance of 200 pounds of blue crabs.

An incidental take endorsement to allow harvest of a limited amount of blue crabs from shrimp and stone crab fishing gear also was approved by the Commission, and the 2006 Legislature must approve a proposed $25 fee for this endorsement.

The new rules also allow blue crab harvesters to obtain permission from the FWC Division of Law Enforcement to let another person transport, deploy or retrieve his/her traps on a short-term basis under certain conditions for reasons of hardship. These rules will take effect next month.