MINIMUM SIZE OF FISH CATCH ALLOWED
MINIMUM SIZE
OF FISH CATCH ALLOWED
What are the
laws that are in place to regulate the size of fish that could be legally
caught? Are there such laws and what are they? It seems to me however that
catching fish in this country is a free for all, such that anybody can catch
any size of fish anywhere, and everybody can just get away with it. Just
recently, I bought a dozen baby milkfish from a supermarket that is too small
to be caught or harvested.
A friend
told me that milkfish that are grown in fishponds can be harvested by the owner
at any time at any size, but should there not be regulations regarding that? As
I understand it, we have a shortage of milkfish fingerlings so much so that we
already have to import these. If that is so, then why are we wasting these
fingerlings by not growing them to full size?
I understand
that fishpond owners can harvest any size they want, but how do we monitor and
control the fish that comes from the wild? It would be easy for anyone to claim
that his fish was harvested from a fishpond, and not from the wild. That is
similar to the problem of anyone claiming that his lumber is harvested from a
tree plantation, and not from a forest.
The bottom
line in this issue is two-fold. We are protecting our food security, and our wildlife
assets. If we allow anyone to harvest any fish at any size or age, we might run
out of some fish species before we know it. I am calling the attention of the
Department of Agriculture (DA), the Coast Guard, the BFAR, and the BMB to
attend to this matter. IKE SENERES/04-02-24
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