In Reply to: Im leaning no the side of better management posted by gonphishing on April 19, 2009 at 20:30:31:

Gonphising wrote: "I see to many abusing the privilege of hunting and not approaching it responsibly."

Actually, you sort of hit the nail on the head of one of the problems I see and management has nothing to do with it.

The non-MPA folks have long argued that we don't need closures, we simply need better managemement/enforcement of existing regulations. But that ignores that, given the paucity of enforcement resources, a lot of this depends on SELF management. That applies to those who hunt recreationally as well as commercially. There are gross abuses on both sides.

To essentially say, "Well, if you'll just police me better, I'll follow the rules" seems to be the height of folly. It's like a little kid who cotinually misbehaves and when you tell him to go to his room he says, "I'll be good NOW!!!"

The problem with the "more management/enforcement" train of thought is that there simply aren't resources to add the people required to effectively do this. It's a Trojan Horse argument. Withjout self-policing it unfortunately becomes more practical to make the rule "No take" rather than "Take permitted under these circumstances" because violations of the former are much easier to show than the latter.

And this totally ignores the science behind the idea of leaving an area un-harvested and it rebounds, sometimes rather quickly.

- Ken
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Ken Kurtis
Memeber, SIG (Statewide Interest Group)
Marine Life Protection Act Initiative