Biscayne National Park

Background
Located adjacent to the city of Miami in Biscayne Bay, Biscayne National Park (BNP) experiences approximately 10 million angler trips a year. As part of updating the park's General Management Plan, which was last updated in 1983, the park is also looking in to making changes to its Fisheries Management Plan (FMP). According to the park's Web site, the goal of the FMP is to "manage fish and shellfish within the parks to help ensure that the tradition of fishing can continue for generations to come."

Following a public input period from 2002-2003, the park developed a FMP working group, consisting of recreational and commercial fishers, divers, scientists, and members of the conservation community, which was formed to issue recommendations on the FMP. The Working Group held their sixth and final meeting in October 2004, at which time they finalized their recommendations for the FMP. Due primarily to staff turnover within BNP, the process has stalled until recently.

Marine Reserves In BNP
Even though recommendations from the FMP working group did not include marine reserve areas, park officials have recently proposed implementing marine reserves in BNP as part of the new FMP.

Following a brief public scoping process to receive input on the marine reserve idea, BNP released its five draft alternatives to the FMP. While no specific size or spacing guidelines are given for reserves, three of the alternatives provide the possibility for BNP to implement no-fishing reserves. The full draft FMP can be viewed here.

While overfishing in BNP is clearly an issue that must be addressed in the new GMP, marine reserves are just one tool among the suite of resources available for effective fisheries management, and should be considered only after more conventional and less restrictive management strategies (e.g., size limits, bag limits, quotas, gear restrictions) have failed. This idea is supported by a Memorandum of Understanding between BNP and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), which also manages fisheries resources in the park, that reads:

"FWC and the park agree to seek the least restrictive management actions necessary to fully achieve mutual management goals for the fishery resources of the park and adjoining areas. Furthermore, both parties recognize the FWC’s belief that marine reserves (no-take areas) are overly restrictive and that less-restrictive management measures should be implemented during the duration of this MOU."

The new FMP both should address overfishing in BNP while still allowing for public access to public resources via recreational fishing. Given the widespread distribution of recreational fishing that occurs throughout BNP, any marine reserve of significant size would inevitably shut anglers out of favorite fishing areas, keeping anglers off the water, out of the park, and diminishing the economic benefit of sportfishing to the local economy.

The draft FMP was open for public comment through October 6, 2009. The American Sportfishing Association and the National Marine Manufacturers Association sent a joint letter to BNP expressing their concerns with the marine reserve proposal and urging the National Park Service to follow the recommendations of its own working group which did not include no-fishing zones in its FMP recommendations.

Send a Letter!
Although the comment period on the FMP is closed, you can still do your part to help ensure recreational fishing continues in BNP! Please send a letter to Governor Crist and your Members of Congress demanding that they take action to stop the National Park Service from including marine reserves in the FMP.

Park officials will next incorporate public comments on the FMP into a draft General Management Plan, which will be released at a future date.

For more information on this issue, read the following newspaper articles:

• Say 'no' to closures 10-1-09
• Biscayne National Park Anglers Speak Out Against No Fishing Zones 9-23-09
• Increased law enforcement is stressed at workshops 9-20-09
• Park officials want to ban fishing in part of Biscayne Bay 8-14-09
• Proposals announced to manage fisheries 8-9-09
• 'No fishing' zones reconsidered at Biscayne National Park 7-21-09