10/24/2009 - Fishing for dozens of kinds of fish could become illegal from Central Florida to Charleston, S.C., because of a federal agency’s work to protect one species, the red snapper.

That could shut down much of the commercial and sport fishing industries in a large swath of the Southeastern coast, with some restrictions potentially lasting up to 35 years.

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“We have a population that’s really, really young and fishing rates that are really, really high, and that’s not a good combination,” said Holly Binns, Tallahassee-based manager of a campaign against over-fishing run by an arm of the Pew Charitable Trusts.

That arm, the Pew Environment Group, campaigned earlier in the decade for legislation updating a cornerstone of American fishing policy, the 1976 Magnuson-Stevens Act.

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Read the full article Feds Weighing Unprecedented Fishing Closure on The Florida Times-Union's Web site.