MINIMUM SIZE OF FISH CATCH ALLOWED

MINIMUM SIZE OF FISH CATCH ALLOWED What are the laws that are in place to regulate the size of fish that could be legally caught? Are there such laws and what are they? It seems to me however that catching fish in this country is a free for all, such that anybody can catch any size of fish anywhere, and everybody can just get away with it. Just recently, I bought a dozen baby milkfish from a supermarket that is too small to be caught or harvested. A friend told me that milkfish that are grown in fishponds can be harvested by the owner at any time at any size, but should there not be regulations regarding that? As I understand it, we have a shortage of milkfish fingerlings so much so that we already have to import these. If that is so, then why are we wasting these fingerlings by not growing them to full size? I understand that fishpond owners can harvest any size they want, but how do we monitor and control the fish that comes from the wild? It would be easy for anyone to claim that his fish was harvested from a fishpond, and not from the wild. That is similar to the problem of anyone claiming that his lumber is harvested from a tree plantation, and not from a forest. The bottom line in this issue is two-fold. We are protecting our food security, and our wildlife assets. If we allow anyone to harvest any fish at any size or age, we might run out of some fish species before we know it. I am calling the attention of the Department of Agriculture (DA), the Coast Guard, the BFAR, and the BMB to attend to this matter. IKE SENERES/04-02-24