Both amateur and limited commercial tropical fish and invertebrate collecting 

 occur throughout the Looe Key area. Tropical specimen collectors take a large 

 variety of fish, but concentrate primarily on a small number of the more popular 

 species. The most commonly collected fishes, according to a recent study, are 

 angelfishes, damselfi shes, and butterflyf ishes. Individually, the most sought 

 after fishes are the queen angelfish, rock beauty and neon goby. 



Dredging, dredged material disposal and ocean outfalls do not appear to pose 

 a realistic threat to the area at this time. However, due to the increasing num- 

 ber of visitors, disposal and discharge of certain other substances such as trash 

 and litter are sources of concern. Current disposal and discharge activities are 

 generally incidental to recreation and research; i.e., disposal of fish parts 

 from cleaning and dressing fish caught in the area, release of marinetype 

 chumming or bait and materials, discharge of effluents from marine sanitation 

 devices, discharges of cooling waters from normal vessel engine operations and 

 disposal of trash and litter from pleasure and research watercraft and transient 

 vessels. 



Finally, there is currently no protection for potentially important 

 archaeological resources found in the area, including the shipwreck HMS Looe . 



° Statutory Authorities 



Looe Key is located on the continental shelf seaward of the territorial sea 

 and State jurisdiction. A variety of Federal statues and regulations apply to 

 activities in the area. Those that apply to activites posing significant threats 

 are analyzed in Chapter Three, The Legal Status Quo. The mandates of existing 

 authorities are often too broad to focus adequately on small discrete areas 

 requiring special management measures. Jurisdictions include, in some cases, 

 all waters or seabed out to 200 nautical miles off the entire United States 

 coastline. In other cases, mandates are often too narrow to provide holistic 

 attention; statutes directed at a particular resource may neglect or exclude 

 components of the entire ecosystem. Finally, decentralized management of 

 multiple use areas can result in policy conflicts, and does not lend itself to 

 integrated management including education, research, recreation and information 

 exchange. 



Regulation of coral collecting, tropical specimen collecting, spearfishing 

 and anchoring activities does not presently exist. Fishery Management Plans 

 (FMP) are in preparation for some, but not all species of interest. The SAFMC 

 and the GMFMC are jointly preparing a draft Coral and Coral Reef Resources FMP 

 as the initial step in the management of all coral species under the jurisdiction 

 of these two Councils. The current plan proposes to approve for harvest limited 

 quantities of certain soft coral species, and to prohibit taking of hard corals 

 except under permit for scientific and educational purposes. This draft FMP 

 further proposes to designate Looe Key as a 1 sq nm Habitat Area of Particular 

 Concern (HAPC) with special management measures for additional protection of 

 the Fore Reef area (see Legal Status Quo). 



In addition to the Coral and Coral Reef Resources FMP, the SAFMC and the 

 GMFMC are jointly preparing a FMP for Spiny Lobster, and the SAFMC is preparing 

 a FMP for Snapper-grouper. Restrictions on fishing for these resources may be 



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