The Anna Maria Island Sun Newspaper

Vol. 15 No. 43 - August 26, 2015

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Coastal Collaboration Dinner benefits CCA

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Rusty Chinnis | sun

The FCA now CCA has helped the recovery of redfish one
of Florida’s favorite gamefish.

 

 

The Coastal Conservation Association (CCA) will be benefiting from a Coastal Collaboration Dinner on Wednesday, Sept. 2, from 6 to 9 p.m. in the Neptune Room at the Seafood Shack in Cortez. This unique format will include four of Manatee Counties finest chefs – Gerald Jesse, of the Seafood Shack; Dave Shiplett, of SOMA Creek Side; Derek Barnes, from Derek’s; and Dana Johnson, of Sugar Cubed.

Also featured will be Vanessa Lafaye, an author whose new book “Under a Dark Summer Sky” is based on a Florida historical event. The novel is a love story set during a major natural disaster, the hurricane that hit the Florida Keys in 1935. The story evokes what happens when people are tested to the limits of their endurance.

The dinner and banquet will happen exactly 80 years after the hurricane depicted in the book actually hit! The chefs will be creating an exciting menu inspired by the amazing foods depicted in the book.

The CCA is a non-profit organization with 17 coastal state chapters spanning the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic seaboard and the Pacific Northwest. CCA had its beginnings in 1977 after drastic commercial overfishing along the Texas coast decimated redfish and speckled trout populations.

In response, 14 concerned recreational anglers created the Gulf Coast Conservation Association to combat commercial over fishing. The stewardship started with a Save the Redfish campaign, and by 1985, chapters had formed along the Gulf Coast.
In 1985, the Manatee Chapter of the then Florida Conservation Association (FCA) became the fifth state chapter of the then Florida Conservation Association. In 1986, FCA successfully intervened in lawsuits filed by commercial interests opposing Spanish mackerel recovery plans.

The CCA was also successful in stopping purse seining of spawning redfish in the Gulf of Mexico. In 1987, FCA merged with the Everglades Protection Association and the FCA joined with CCA in efforts to bring about a management plan to protect billfish from longline fishing vessels.

In 1988, the FCA won a four-year battle to achieve gamefish status for Florida's depleted redfish stocks. Redfish becomes the first species since 1957 to be removed from Florida's market. Also in 1988, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce signed a FCA-supported management plan for billfish, marking the first time federal authorities have declared a gamefish in federal water.

By the early ‘90s, the mid-Atlantic region and the New England had chapters. Washington and Oregon opened CCA chapters in 2007. CCA has participated productively in virtually every national fisheries debate since 1984. In the federal court system, CCA’s legal defense fund has been used to defend net bans, fight for the implementation of by catch reduction devices, support pro-fisheries legislation and battle arbitrary no-fishing zones.

The CCA network is engaged in hundreds of local, state and national projects that initiate scientific studies, fund marine-science scholarships, build artificial reefs, create finfish hatcheries, initiate hydrologic and contaminant studies, monitor freshwater inflows, support local marine law enforcement and more.

Through broad-based recreational angler support, a strong legal and legislative presence, decades of experience and an unwavering vision for the future of U.S. and global marine resources, CCA battles for the sustainable health of our coastal fisheries and for recreational anglers’ interests.

Kudos are in order for the organizers of the event at the Seafood Shack for supporting such important marine indicatives’. RSVP to the event by calling 941-794-1235. The Seafood Shack is located at 4110 127th St. W., Cortez, FL 34215.


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