Costa Maya, Q.R. — Net fishing in areas of Chetumal Bay still pose a threat. For this reason, local biologists are hoping to have the La Aguada area of Chetumal Bay listed as a fishing refuge.
Miguel Mateo Sabido Itzá, who heads the Áreas Naturales Protegidas Zona Sur, says while a lot of people practice catch and release through fly fishing, there are some that still net fish.
Fishing with nets is a threat to because they capture important species such as pomfret, juvenile tarpon, tarpon and black sea bass, barracudas and amberjacks.
“Fly fishers do a particular kind of fishing where they catch the fish with flies and then release them. It is an important sector because many people from other places arrive to do this here,” he said.
This type of fishing is considered one of the most important in the Bay. Up until now, there are no official regulations for the type of fishing.
“In light of this, we saw the opportunity to declare a fishing refuge zon, where the area is fully delimited because what we are looking for is the recovery of the fish in question,” he said.
It has been proposed to decree 49,000 hectares in the marine zone to conserve the populations.
“The goal is to recover the species and to ensure that nets are not allowed within the fishing refuge zone, and also to ensure that there is a greater presence of the competent authorities to carry out surveillance monitoring,” he said.
According to the Pescando Datos portal of Causa Natura, there are currently 14 networks of Fishing Refuges in the country on the coasts of Baja California Sur, Sinaloa, Sonora, Quintana Roo and Yucatan.
In Yucatan there is one in Celestún, which protects species such as the red grouper, red octopus, Caribbean lobster, sea cucumber, sea urchin, carito, sierra, beaked, and abalone.
