April 9, 2014 — The report painted a bleak picture of wild-caught shrimp, ignoring the reality of a vastly improved conservation landscape.
The use of Turtle Excluder Devices (TEDs) on shrimp nets has played a pivotal role in protecting turtles. Populations are growing; some exponentially. They are measured by nesting females.
Given the time to maturity, it can take 25 years or more for the benefits of turtle conservation to be seen, itself using beach nesting counts. Coincidentally, in November 2013, 24 years after TEDs, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature declared that the Western Atlantic leatherback population status to be of "least concern."
In 2012, Florida, home of the largest U.S. loggerhead populations, had the highest nesting counts in 25 years.
According to Mel Bell, South Carolina's Director of Fishery Management with the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), there were 473 trawler licenses issued last year in South Carolina compared to about 1,500 licenses in 1982.
Given the diminutive fishing effort of today's fleet and the use of TEDs, local fishermen found the news report preposterous.
Read the full opinion piece at the Charleston Post and Courier