Jupiter shark divers cut commercial shark fisher's longline, which is illegal in Florida

"An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind." 

A fight over sharks — or rather rights to sharks — moved from Facebook to the deep blue waters of the Gulf Stream early this week.

One party executed an impulsive emotional act. The second party is left with damaged property and continues to be victimized by the disgusting side of social media.

The whole matter is now in the hands of law enforcement.

What's done is done. I'm afraid there's no putting this genie back in the bottle.

When the issue is finally settled, there may be fines, jail time, civil penalties and, last but not least, new federal and/or state regulations about how we as a society will handle sharks in the future.

The incident

Monday, a commercial shark fisher and a shark dive boat charter intersected at a point about three miles off Jupiter Inlet. The fisher, Capt. Rich Osburn of Fort Pierce, made a set of 300 hooks on his longline, six miles in length.

By the time he began to retrieve his line, it went slack about halfway through. He found a clean cut on the line, not the type of cut a shark makes when it accidentally gets the line in its teeth. About half of his fishing gear — 150 hooks, weights and poly ball — was gone.

Osburn came to learn from a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission law enforcement officer his gear had been cut and carried inshore by the shark dive boat.

As he was being told this information, social media erupted with posts from the shark divers. On Instagram and Facebook, they posted photos of the confiscated gear sitting on a fuel dock across from the landmark Jupiter Lighthouse.

Diver Leigh Cobb, who was not aboard, said her friends found "11 tiger sharks, two great hammerheads and 11 goliath groupers" on the line they collected.

There was no verification these sharks actually were on the line. Osburn said that claim was a "bald-faced lie" and he has caught and released only three or four goliath groupers in the past three or four years.

Cobb called Osburn names and even posted his home address, where he lives with his wife and children. She also urged shark lovers to call NOAA Fisheries and the FWC to report Osburn for his "illegal" activities. 

Except the divers appear to be the only ones who did anything illegal. 

The longliner

Osburn has been in the shark fishing business for 28 years, working the waters from Daytona Beach to Key West. Commercial shark fishing is legal. And, yes, people purchase and eat shark meat as they would any fish.

Fishing for them isn't glamorous. It's gory. And no one will get rich doing it.

It entails long hours, low pay, difficult working conditions, fickle seas and strict regulations. Things like weather and equipment failure are daily foes that can take away a day's pay, or even a week's.

In my more than 25 years of covering fishing issues, I've learned few fisheries have more oversight or are more regulated by state and federal agencies than commercial shark fishing.

These fishers are limited on what species they can harvest, how many they can harvest, what size they can harvest, how to process them, how to store and transport them, and how many can be harvested from the ocean in one day and in one year. The paperwork these fishers are required to manage would bring an IRS auditor to tears.

My Cliff's Notes explanation of commercial shark fishing:

• They fish in federal waters, over 3 miles from shore on Florida's Atlantic coast 
• Osburn and his crew set out a longline measuring 6 miles in length
• There are 300 hooks 55 feet apart on 6-foot-long leaders
• The end of the longline is anchored to the bottom
• A large orange poly ball marks the end of the line
• 10-pound dumbbell weights (from Dick's Sporting Goods) weigh down the line every quarter mile
• Hooks are baited with stingray, mullet or pieces of bonito
• Osburn brings in the line, hook by hook, harvesting sharks he can keep, then measuring, documenting, tagging and releasing ones he cannot keep
• A GPS device attached to the longline marks its position

He can harvest 45-55 sharks per trip, which usually last about 48 hours. Sharks he can legally harvest include:

• blacktip
• bull
• lemon
• silky
• spinner
• tiger
• hammerhead

Tigers and hammerheads are two of 26 species that may not be harvested in Florida waters. Osburn said he doesn't fish for them in federal water anyway because there is no market value for them. No one wants to buy their meat.

The other sharks he'll get about $1.50 a pound for, plus some extra for the liver and fins. A trip may yield about $2,000 total. He'll keep about $1,500 for the boat and his family. His crew will get $500-$600.

Federal limits allow about 450,000 pounds of sharks to be commercially harvested by all shark fishers combined. Osburn accounts for the majority of it — 250,000 pounds annually — and is one of the last boats shark fishing off Florida's coastline.

On this particular fishing trip, Osburn was accompanied by a NOAA Fisheries federal observer and did have a special research permit to fish for sandbar sharks. It is one of the reasons he set his line in 90 feet of water.

The shark divers

Near many of the inlets along Florida's coastline, shark diving charters offer clients the thrill of a lifetime — the chance to swim in close proximity with one of the world's most iconic apex predators.

Shark diving contributes $221 million to Florida's economy, according to a 2017 Oceana report.

To get the sharks close to the divers and the boat, the charter operators toss chunks of fish into the water. The practice has become so effective, the sharks rarely require fish to be tossed into the water anymore. They simply swim right up to the side of the boat when it arrives on the reef.

These intelligent animals have been conditioned, not unlike Pavlov's dogs. They are smart and have long life spans. They evolved over millions of years to find food from long distances away. Now, the sound of an outboard motor and silhouette of a center console is probably enough of a stimulus to trigger a feeding response.

Shark diving has been a growing business for the past 15 years. It is glamorous and attractive to tourists and divers. It has generated a culture of what some refer to as "shark huggers."

These dive operators name the sharks. Divers photograph them and post videos. The sharks are beautiful wild animals.

Wild animals. That part is important.

The FWC makes and enforces laws to govern all public and private lands, lakes, waterways, coastal waters and natural fish and wildlife resources in the Sunshine State. The agency has outlawed the practice of shark feeding in state waters.

Sharks are animals that learn quickly, like porpoises, bears, alligators and panthers. The FWC outlaws feeding all of these apex predators, mostly for the safety of humans, but also for the safety of the animals.

Responsibility

This entire incident could be traced to a Facebook page.

On July 16, I penned a column: "Anglers blame shark-diving for half-eaten catches and seek rules to allow thinning the herd." I expressed the frustration anglers, commercial fishers targeting snapper, grouper and kingfish, and spearfishing divers are having with a proliferation of sharks in their fishing areas. It's been a worsening trend for 10 years or more, Capt. Patrick Price of DayMaker charters in Stuart theorized.

A few days after my column ran, Price started a Facebook group titled "Let's Tax the Tax Man." In less than a month, the group has gained 4,000 members. If Price ever gives up fishing, he might consider working for Facebook.

The site began as a sounding board for frustrated anglers. But then the conversation was joined by shark divers and conservationists, and eventually Osburn.

Osburn did something most commercial fishers don't do — he posted openly. His transparency helped show recreational fishers that he was offering a service. It was one of the few times two sides that are historically at odds — recreational anglers and commercial fishers — came together on the same side of an issue.

We all know Facebook. It has become the great forum for arguments and social division. The tax man page is rampant with vitriol grenades lobbed by keyboard commandos.

Osburn announced over the weekend he planned to fish off Jupiter. He quite possibly sparked an idea among the divers.

Where it stands

The divers are in deep trouble. Taking another's commercial fishing gear can be a serious offense punishable by prison time and fines. Transporting the gear inland could violate the Lacey Act, a federal law that could result in seizure of the dive vessel. The value of the gear itself was around $5,000, which qualifies the offense as grand theft.

The FWC is "looking into it," spokesperson Carol Lyn Parrish told TCPalm.

Osburn said he is not standing pat on trolls' social media threats to burn or sink his boat His wife, Nicole, takes screenshots of comments and they will be contacting a lawyer.

To Price's credit, he feels partially responsible for Osburn's lost gear. He started a GoFundMe page to help replace what Osburn lost. He may get it back, but FWC has it in evidence for now. 

Price and other recreational anglers view Osburn as a knight in shark-bloodstained armor. But by the time this whole matter is settled, shark divers, shark fishers and maybe even recreational fishers may find tight regulations on some kinds of fishing.

It's quite possible, if it happens, that no one will be satisfied. 

Ed Killer is TCPalm's outdoors writer. Become a valued customer by subscribing to TCPalm. To interact with Ed, friend him on Facebook at Ed Killer, follow him on Twitter @tcpalmekiller or email him at ed.killer@tcpalm.com.