[Renfield]

Shrimping is environmentally destructive, and severely reduces stocks of sport fish, including redfish, black drum, and flounder. The sooner we get rid of the Gulf shrimping fleet, the better.

I have a good friend in Texas who is leading a conservation initiative to buy up shrimping licenses and retire them. He's retired a bunch so far. I suspect these low prices will tempt more shrimpers to sell their licenses.

Fewer shrimpers = better fishing!!!!

[arthurus]

Gulf shrimping and commercial deep sea fishing used to be done near the coast of Mexico on the Campeche Banks. Then the US government recognized a 200 mile commercial international limit and American fishermen were cut off. The fish and the shrimp are still in the Campeche but now they are sent here as hated IMPORTS.

The great oceangoing shrimpers and snapper boats were all limited to fishing on our own Gulf coast which began to severely deplete our stocks and resulted in bankruptcies and heavy regulation. The government had also pushed large loans on the snapper fishermen before making the sea limit changes and the fishermen were faced with these loans to the government that they could not pay off. Uncle Sam, to get his money back, made more loans and encouraged the introduction of long-lining which practice damages reefs and further depletes stocks because of the damaged habitat, but it was very profitible for a few years and the government got its loans repaid.

[hedgetrimmer]

Shrimping is environmentally destructive, and severely reduces stocks of sport fish,

Gee, this sounds exactly like the United Nations position on US fisheries.

Speaking from experience, shutting off commercial fishermen doesn't help sport fishers, because once the freedom to fish is denied, then commercial and sport fishing is shut down.

I have a good friend in Texas who is leading a conservation initiative to buy up shrimping licenses and retire them

Your friend is no friend he is a shill for the United Nations,because they want to see an end to fishing in this country. When people can get their own food, they are hard to subjugate. When you shut down fishing, you are subjugating people to a type of tyranny that Joe Stalin used to get the Ukraine into line.

[Keshia]

Well send your friend this way and he will get laughed at all the way back home. Us shrimpers that catch wild caught shrimp are not going anywhere it is the sport fishing that is all the TROUBLE they think they know everything and really all they know how to do is run there mouths at stuff that is not true like shrimping is environmentally destructive only in your dreams, and I don't plan on selling any of my licenses I don't care how low the price goes I have a place to tie my boat up at and to sell my shrimp all over the U.S. so I am not going anywhere!!!!

[dljordan]

"I have a good friend in Texas who is leading a conservation initiative to buy up shrimping licenses and retire them. He's retired a bunch so far. I suspect these low prices will tempt more shrimpers to sell their licenses."

Well good for him! Maybe he can go to Asia when he's finished here and try to buy theirs up. I'm sure they want to save the environment too.