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Biggest Ever Illegal Commercial Striper Bust in Chesapeake
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Size: 25K |
Last Updated: 2009/2/2 |
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Size: 27K |
Last Updated: 2009/1/7 |
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Stripers Forever -Federal and state officials in the Chesapeake Bay area recently broke up a ring of watermen who have made an organized business of cirumventing state landings rules for striped bass for many years. Over $5,000,000 dollars worth of striped bass are estimated to have been taken illegally.
Although this is the biggest poaching scheme uncovered to date, it is just another in a long list of arrests, and certainly this is but the tip of the iceberg; the majority of illegal fishermen will never be caught. These illegal catches result in back door cash sales to restaurants and fish markets that never hit the landings reports and thus are never counted against commercial quotas. What is the official calculation of the illegal catch....? That's right, you guessed it...... ZERO!
No wonder this world class fishery is rapidly slipping away from us.
It's time to make striped bass a game fish and manage this species for the benefit of the 3 million plus citizens who fish for it up and down the East Coast for food and personal enjoyment.
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