Tag Archives: Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge
Big Green Bureaucracy – Commercial fishermen fight to fish near NASA
George Sweetman must follow the crabs. This year, they lure him to the shallows surrounding NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, where the beginnings of a blue crab revival crawl inside his steel traps. But a plan to phase out his trade from these remote waters could claw back a recent turnaround in the fortunes of Sweetman and others who fish the Mosquito Lagoon — the northernmost section of the Indian River Lagoon — killing off their unique heritage.But the feds say he and others who fish commercially must go because they clash with the government’s conservation mission. Read the rest here 20:10
Oak Hill fights looming ban on fishing in wildlife refuge
“A determination was made that commercial harvesting of fish, crabs and shellfish has inherent impacts upon the marine environment that are not compatible with the purpose of the refuge; consequently, the decision was to end permitting of the activity by October 2018,” Refuge Manager Layne Hamilton (bureaucrat) said in an email. “We recognized the long history of commercial fishing and the economic dependence of many local residents on this activity and that is reason the Fish and Wildlife Service provided a 11-year transition to reduce the hardship.” Read the rest here 20:35
