Enforcement or Harassment

How is this helping anything

Two incidents in as many weeks have both aggravated me and given me some ideas for new books. I guess for my readers that’s not a bad thing because I tend to write better when I’m angry. It’s not so good for me personally though—or for our resources.

The plot lines, locations, and characters for my books are often a mix of current events and my personal experience. I spend a lot of time in the Keys which gives me endless fodder for Mac Travis and Kurt Hunter. The Storm series is based on my travels, and the Tides of Fortune stories are a mix of places I’ve been or sound interesting.

We have a place in Big Pine Key. The area is considerably quieter than other areas of the Keys and therefore seldom patrolled by the FWC. The only time in the two years we’ve been there that I have seen enforcement was the opening of lobster season last year. That makes sense because the nearby Content Keys are overrun with divers that week. The other time was the week before Christmas.

We were coming back into Pine Channel after a day of fishing on the reef. There were six of us aboard and the rod holders were full of fishing rods (you can’t have too many rods). The three neighborhoods on the west side of Big Pine Key require passing underneath US 1 at the Pine Channel Bridge. That becomes a natural choke point where an FWC boat was pulling people over. Keep in mind that this was several days before Christmas, a slow week, and within a half hour of sunset.

The FWC boat had someone pulled over when we came within site of it. Everyone slowed, and several boats passed by while the officers were still engaged. We were the next boat when they finished and got pulled over.

“I see you have a lot of fishing rods aboard. Catch anything?”

The FWC is a powerful enforcement organization that over the years has become all-encompassing. They were once tasked solely with wildlife conservation. Now law enforcement, safety and other issues both on and off the water have been added to their responsibilities. Instead of Game Warden, their vehicles are lettered with State Law Enforcement. That makes me angry on a number of levels. One is that instead of observing suspicious activity and using that as cause to pull boaters over, they use safety checks as a tool to search for other infractions.

I showed the officer our catch (Spanish Mackerel) and he let us go with a parting statement that there should be a space between the FL and the numbers on the registration placed on the bow—and that he could have written me a ticket for that. Merry Christmas.

The next incident was last weekend. We went camping near Everglades City (the location for the next Kurt Hunter book). On these kinds of trips, we’ll bring our tandem kayak so we can take our dog on the water with us. Saturday we went into the Ten Thousand Islands, launching from the Everglades National Park facility in Everglades City. Nice facility, and no problems.

Sunday we wanted to paddle one of the rivers and visited the Big Cypress National Preserve Welcome Center for a recommendation. They gave us a handout with several possibilities from which we chose the Turner River. We drove to the launch and unloaded the kayak. When we were ready to launch two volunteers approached and said that we weren’t allowed to bring our dog with us. There was nothing in the literature or any signage at the launch sit to that effect.

The woman cited safety concerns and threatened to call law enforcement if we didn’t comply. I tried to remain calm, appreciating that they are volunteers, but this kind of thing gets me going. I asked if the safety concerns were a law or a recommendation. I was clear that if it was a recommendation, that we are entirely aware of the risks of taking a dog on the water in alligator country, and it should be our choice. Our dog is very good on the water, probably better than a lot of the kids that go. I was also clear that if it was the law we would comply.

The woman went off to make a phone call to clarify. This in itself was infuriating. All we wanted to do was to take a dog on a public waterway in our own kayak, not a whole lot of other things we could be doing that they might have been totally unaware of.

She came back after about ten minutes and said that dogs are not allowed on the trails in the preserve and that the water is a trail. I had reached the point of acceptance and come up with a fallback plan at a nearby state park and accepted this without a fight.

One of the perks of being a fiction writer is that I get to kill people I don’t like, and you can bet she’ll be in Backwater Glades. At least I have an outlet for my anger.

Enforcing conservation is difficult, but why spend time and resources harassing the group of people more likely to comply with the regulations instead of searching out likely offenders. I’ve known recreational anglers who break the law, but it is usually only one or two fish and generally out of frustration rather than malice. Their usual reason is that after spending time and money to get on the water they often want something to show for it. Bad behavior, but not something that is destroying our resources.

The enforcement agencies and their volunteers also need to know that you can’t expect people to follow the laws if they don’t have access to them. There was nothing about dogs on the water in the visitors center, the literature, or the launch site. A week-old querry on the Big Cypress National Preserve website regarding dogs on the water has yet to be answered.

I’ve always thought that the best way to conserve our resources, which I am a proponent of, is through education. The laws, especially regarding fisheries, are overly complicated with size limits and closures that change regularly. The only way to ensure that you are within the regulations is through an app (Fish Rules).

Regulations need to be readily available if you want people to comply.

The system we now have is too complicated for the majority of recreational folks.

People like you and me are not the ones that are raping our resources. We have more to lose than a couple of undersized or out-of-season fish and are well aware of the penalties. In my opinion, the FWC and the National Park Service would be better served to patrol and seek out infractions. The guys with 127 under-sized lobsters are the ones you want, not the family with one small fish or wanting to take their dog on their kayak.