‘Phasing Out Gill Nets’

Your editorial neglected to reveal the commercial fishing industry’s lobbying tactics. For more than 60 years, the seiners, ring nets, trammel nets and more recently, the gill nets have been raping California’s fisheries into oblivion--all this with the connivance of the Fish and Game Commission.

SB 40 and AB 1094 will not provide the protection needed to restore this valuable natural resource. We need to direct support to the ocean net fishing initiative petitions now being circulated; 600,000 signatures are needed to put this amendment on the ballot.

The National Coalition for Marine Conservation, recreational boat owners, sport fishermen, environmental and marine management groups are joined in an all-out effort to ban all entangling nets from a three-mile spawning zone along the entire coast of California.

OTTO KIESSIG

Laguna Hills