Comment from Matt Hurlbut

I feel that the commercial fishing industry is most to blame for the decline in the population of red grouper and grouper in general. In my particular region the fishing has drasticly fallen off since NOAA closed the red grouper fishery off the coast of Florida and forced all of the commercial fishing boats in Florida up the coast. Within a short period of time after this influx of more commercial fisherman the numbers of red grouper decreased. The problem is these guys weren't only catching these fish with hook and line but they also were spearfishing for these fish. It does not take a college education to figure out that spearfishing can be devastating to a population of fish. When a fish is speared it doesn't matter if it is hungry or not. There is no way that the recreational fisherman can deplete the populations at the rate commercial fisherman do. Recreational fisherman have stricter quantity limits and are only fishing for a short period of time and not out there for days on end wiping out reefs. In my opinion the stricter regulation needs to be on the commercial fishing industry.