Officer Liam Rodriguez with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and Public Information Officer for the Florida Keys, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s been going on in the Keys.
This is the second day of lobster mini season.
Rodriguez said, “For the most part, everyone is complying very well. I think the biggest problems we’ve had is people not knowing where they are and where to lobster and where not to. We found multiple boats lobstering in John Pennycamp State Park, which during the mini season, is definitely a no go. Yesterday myself, I found a couple of boats inside of the Everglades National Park. Now they didn’t really know they were not supposed to be lobstering there, however, but the main thing is for everyone to educate themselves as to, where can they harvest lobster and where not to.”
Mini season will end tonight at midnight.
Rodriguez said, “Then the regular season will begin again on August 6. For the most part, everyone is harvesting the limit. There’s six per day. Another thing to know is the diver down flag. They need to make sure it is the right size. We’ve seen a couple of violations here where they’re displaying the incorrect diver down flag from the vessel. So if you’re going to display from the vessel, it has to be 20 by 24 inches. The 12 by 12 diver down flag is only displayed from the water if the diver is towing the flag on the water.”
Boaters need to keep a certain distance from a vessel showing a diver down flag.
Rodriguez explained, “If you are in a navigational channel, which is what we have mostly here in the Florida Keys, you have to stay within 100 feet of that diver down flag. If you are in open water, on the bay side or ocean side, you must stay within 300 feet of that diver down flag. Our recommendation is, especially just during mini season, with the amount of boats that we have on the water, don’t push that 300 feet or 100 feet limit because of the many boats that we are going to have on the water. On that same note, boaters are operating near that diver down flight, they need to operate a normal speed 300 feet away from the dive flag. If they do need to come from within that distance, they must slow down all the way to idle speed, if they’re going to come within those 300 or 100 feet of the diver down flag.”
People need to be careful not to disturb the environment around them, too.
Rodriguez said, “It’s extremely important that they do not hold on to corals or rock formations. Those that are diving and using scuba equipment, make sure that your scuba equipment doesn’t touch those corals as well, or your fins, definitely not standing on rocks or coral formations. We need to respect those marine habitats so that future generational species can grow healthy here in the Florida Keys.”
Do people understand how to properly measure a lobster?
Rodriguez said, “We haven’t seen many reports of undersized lobster. What tells me is that people, for the most part, are very well educated on how to measure the lobster. I know we have many publications out there that explain specifically, how to measure the lobster. But for the most part, because of reports, I would think that people, for the most part, they do know how to measure the lobster correctly.”
People need to stay vigilant and be careful.
Rodriguez said, “So far, it’s been a good mini season. We urge everyone to be extremely careful out there, especially during these couple of days. There needs to be a lookout on that boat at all times, make sure that they are aware of any boats that might be approaching. It is imperative that they have a good sound producing device, whether it’s the boat horn, a good horn, an air horn, a whistle, readily available with that lookout, so if there is a boat that might be approaching that vessel, or those divers to go ahead and signal them, start making noise, and get visible. Make sure that we protect those divers in the water. With this great weather, we anticipate that it might be just as busy as it was yesterday, especially many people have had great success. They had great success yesterday. It might be a good indication that there’s plenty of lobster out there still to harvest. So perhaps we might have just as busy a day today as we had yesterday. We welcome everyone to enjoy our lobster sports season amongst friends and family. We definitely urge everyone to protect Florida’s natural resources so that the future generations can also partake and enjoy everything that Florida has to offer. But most importantly though, remember that safety isn’t an option. It’s essential, and the most important part is that we want you all to come home safe.”