Guam Spearfishing Ban

In recent news, Guam has passed proposed a bill banning scuba spearfishing on the island. Needless to say, many locals are upset.

The argument is that scuba spearfishing is not sustainable and that this ban will allow the fish populations to replenish. Spearfishing with scuba gear allows fishermen to remain underwater longer and thus catch more fish than breath-hold spearfishing.

I’m not the biggest fan of spearfishing, and prefer not to dive with anybody who is spearfishing. Nevertheless, I find a bill like this a little surprising given the nature of island nations like Guam.

If you’re planning a trip to Guam in the future, keep an eye out in the future for whether or not you should leave your speargun at home.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 13th, 2010 at 6:35 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “Guam Spearfishing Ban”

  1. Josh Lunzaga Says:
    July 15th, 2010 at 2:09 am

    thank you for this update.. But I do not really get what is the difference of spearfishing from the normal way of fishing..

  2. Alexander M Kerr Says:
    July 18th, 2010 at 3:41 pm

    Hafa adai from Guam,

    Hmm, not sure where you got your information from, but Guam still allows spearfishing, and the forecast is that there will always be spearfishing on Guam.

    However, the Guam legislature is considering a ban SCUBA spearfishing, because commercial interests here have used this technique to rapidly deplete local fish stocks. But so far, even SCUBA spearfishing is still legal.

    So if youre coming to Guam, you can still bring your speargun!

    Cheers,

    Alex

  3. David Says:
    July 18th, 2010 at 4:31 pm

    Hi Alex,

    Thanks for the clarification. I updated the article to reflect that the bill has only been PROPOSED, but not passed, as detailed in the article.

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