People have ‘jumped the gun’ over recreational fishing limits

People have ‘jumped the gun’ over recreational fishing limits

Deputy Steve Luce has now said that nothing has been decided and some figures contained within the report had been simply taken from French and UK regulations.

‘The problem is that people have jumped the gun, nothing has been decided. This is merely a discussion document that was intended for the Marine Resources Panel,’ he said.

‘The document was put on the internet and people have mistaken it as a proposal or something that I had passed, and that could not be further from the truth.

‘If I did want to implement the limits in the document, I would need to get laws drafted and then they would have to go through the Assembly. That could take us right past the election.’

A document posted online detailing the Jersey Recreational Fishing Association’s response to the leaked document claimed that there was no point in imposing recreational ‘bag-limits’ on lobsters when commercial fishermen faced no restrictions.

However, Deputy Luce did say that some species mentioned in the discussion document may warrant increased protection in the future.

He said: ‘We have evidence that there is a lot of lobster around at the moment but there is data to suggest that a huge amount of it is being taken out of the sea and that it is not sustainable.

‘On Monday, we spoke about how Brown Crab was going down too so we need to look at how we manage that.’

He added: ‘I got quite a bad reputation for being too heavy-handed when it came to putting restrictions on bass but now people round Europe are starting to do the same.

‘We have got a really good track record when it comes to conservation and I want it to continue.’

The JRFA also expressed concern over an alleged ‘liberation’ of fish stocks for commercial fishing by reducing the catch limits for recreational fishermen.

However, despite reinforcing the fact that no new regulations had been decided, Deputy Luce said that it was important to ensure that commercial fishing remained a sustainable activity.

He said: ‘We need to remember that commercial fishermen make their livelihoods out of this – we need to ensure that people can continue to eat local fish throughout the year.

‘We are not trying to stop recreational fishermen, we just want to work out how much they can take before it is too much.’

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