Greetings!
In the coming days, active members of the Florida chapter of the Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA-FL) will be receiving more correspondence and updates through our growing RFA-FL team which includes volunteers Dave Huber, Dave Heil, Meli Londeree, Gary Poyssick and Bob Flocken from the Southern Kingfish Association (SKA). These RFA-FL volunteers are actively working on attacking the problem of continued fisheries closures in Florida, but they need your help!
It’s time to call up the Florida chapter of the Recreational Fishing Alliance -and we need your support!
Saltwater anglers throughout the Southeast are being denied access to red snapper, grouper, black sea bass and other fisheries vital to our coastal fishing communities - and it’s time for an active and coordinated response from you as an RFA-FL chapter member. To put it simply, we’re calling up the troops to fight these continued fishing closures!
The entire recreational fishing community is up in arms over Amendment 17A - but don’t get confused, this amendment is simply a symptom of a national fisheries problem, it’s not the root cause. The real culprit behind these random and arbitrary closures is not some council-driven directive, but a broken federal fisheries law and use of “fatally flawed” science by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). These capricious actions by the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (SAFMC) are the result of a poorly worded federal fisheries law, the Magnuson Stevens Fishery Management and Conservation Act, reauthorized by act of Congress in 2007.
RFA-FL activist and attorney Dave Heil has been leading the charge with a federal lawsuit on behalf of RFA against the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) in response to the red snapper closure. RFA is also involved in federal litigation against NMFS on behalf of black sea bass as well - we are actively pressing on the legal side to stop these ongoing federal closures, while simultaneously pressing legislators to fix the federal fisheries law.
Nationally, RFA has been working hard to overhaul this legislation to help provide more flexibility for SAFMC members to keep healthy, rebuilding fisheries open for access by our recreational fishermen - make no mistake, it’s going to take another act of Congress to get this done in the end, and all starts with you today at the RFA-FL chapter! Our active Florida volunteers need your help - the only way that RFA-FL is going to keep active in the fight for your right to fish is with your active membership in the RFA. It’s been all done at the grassroots level so far, and the only way to win is by strengthening our grassroots coalition of coastal fishermen!
Not sure when your RFA membership comes to an end? Click here to add another year of active RFA membership for just $35 through the RFA’s secured Paypal server - or, for a three-year membership and new RFA hat to wear to the upcoming RFA-FL meetings, go here.
RFA-FL members will be hearing more from RFA volunteers Dave Huber, Dave Heil, Meli Londeree, Gary Poyssick and the rest of our RFA-FL team which includes RFA national directors’ Jack Holmes (SKA), Tom Putnam (Half Hitch Tackle) and Capt. Bob Zales (National Association of Charter Boat Operators).
From Jacksonville to Miami, Key West out to Pensacola, and all the way through Tallahassee to ‘Washington DC - we’re now taking names and ready to kick some tail on your behalf, and these Florida volunteers are the ones who are now helping put it all together.
Join us now, and together, let’s fight for your right to fish!
Sincerely,
Jim Donofrio Signature
Jim Donofrio
Executive Director, Recreational Fishing Alliance
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