Gil Muratori teaches a unique class in fish etiquette
He's part of a National Park Service experiment in south Florida to send first-time fishing violators to a school instead of fining them.
from the January 16, 2008 edition
Page 2 of 3
His solution: enforcement through education. "Why not give them the opportunity to learn regulations rather than slamming them with a fine?" Mr. Curry thought. "It works for drivers, after all."
It probably worked for Mr. Martinez, too. When he was cited for hauling in four undersized fish on his brother's 21-foot boat, he attended Muratori's class and learned the minimum allowable size for lane snapper (8 inches versus the 16 inches for the mutton snapper he thought he had been catching).
The class provided an evening's entertainment – and, most important, allowed him to dodge a $400 fine. "It was going to be a hundred bucks for each one," says Martinez. "I just got them confused with another fish. They looked very similar."
Martinez, who goes fishing once a month, is grateful to the ranger who issued his citation. "He called me about the course and said they would drop the charges if I came," he says. "It was kind of fun."
The problems facing the Biscayne Bay National Park, a 180,000-acre expanse at the top of the Florida Keys, are no different from those at many other marine locations around the US: overfishing, too many people on the water, and environmental degradation through pollution and overuse. Its resources, along with its fish stocks, are finite, which is one reason Curry and Muratori feel it is important to get their message across a little more subtly than taking the sledgehammer approach. Currently, the park's eight rangers are issuing an average of 15 to 20 citations a weekend.
"Obviously, if you're catching 200 fish over the size limit, then you're going to see a judge," Curry says. "But for first-time violators, the idea is to encourage them to become better fishermen and be aware of what the benefits of the regulations are to them."
For that reason, any boat users in south Florida, not just fishermen who have broken the rules, are welcome to attend the class. The school is funded by a $148,000 three-year grant from the National Park Service, which is closely monitoring its success. Organizers hope to take the show on the road at some point, holding classes for any group that wants one, and to offer them in Spanish: Many of the violations given out in Biscayne Bay go to immigrants unaware of local regulations.
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On a typically humid south Florida night, Muratori comes prepared to lecture a new crop of marine offenders. He brings an assortment of props – fishhooks, rods, bait, weights. He's also armed with a few salty stories.
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