Comment from John Farchette III

I am a 14th generation Virgin Islander on my Dad's side and a my mothers side we greeted Columbus. The Caribbean EEZ on the island of St. Croix have been harvested for several decades and are now showing that unsustainable harvesting techniques have been impacting conch and lobster populations. Conch and lobster walk to shore, that is a fact. We have allowed fishermen to harvest this natural resource that belongs to all Virgin Islanders. When the mask and snorkel arrived on St. Croix the commercial fishermen harvested from shore to 40-50 feet deep. When they could no longer wait for the conch to enter their threshold, they saw Lloyd Bridges in Sea Hunt utilize a iron lung and they donned the SCUBA tank and began to chase the conch and lobster off the St. Croix shelf. The problem is not the conch and lobster populations the problem is the SCUBA tank. Remove the SCUBA tank and the shelf will repopulate and then quotas and closures will make a sustainable industry. Until then the fisherman knows that with all the rules and laws regulating fisheries that it is phsically impossible to implement and thus are unenforceable. There isn't enough manpower, laws without funding for enforcement is just writing on a paper. REMOVE THE SCUBA. Grand Barrier Reef and Amercian Samoa already have, SCUBA is only allowed for recreational use, the only take is photo. Thank you for the opportunity to comment.