Shark-Fishing Forum Reveals Destructive Practices Despite Good Intentions

[BenCantrell]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/08/wildlife-watch-land-based-shark-fishing-florida-study/

Not sure if we want to go down the rabbit hole of discussing this, but it's definitely worth a read.  Remember to be careful what you post on the forum.  I do hope the conservation community and the angling community find common ground.  Other than a few bad apples, we're all on the same team.

[sasquatch]

Interesting article.

Not sure my hands would be clean by their standards, but I feel like I do my best.

[Latimeria]

Yeah, it was a good article.  (Seems pretty accurate when I think of the Land Based anglers in the SE also)  
As Squatch said, by their standards, I'm not sure my hands would be totally clean either.

With that said, when they say a significant decline in the shark population, are they meaning World Wide or local to US waters?  Commercial fishing fleets from 3rd world countries especially do tremendous damage in their parts of the world, but I don't see or hear of many local shark markets.  I used to see it in the stores and restaurants, but not not any more. I also thought that I read the local shark populations in the US are on the rise unlike the rest of the world.  The "Decline" would be much less telling by watering it down with the rest of the worlds declining shark populations and using that to target US land based anglers.

In any case, I think we have a healthy respect for our quarry and we have a group of really good and respectful anglers on this site.  Be cautious on what you post as their are plenty of watching eyes out there, but I'm not very worried about this group.

[Pinoyfisher]

Josh and Binh are great about safely releasing their leos