5 scenic hiking trails in Jacksonville, FL
With about 80,000 acres of parks, Jacksonville has plenty of options for hiking. Here are some of our favorites.
- The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is proposing a rule change that would allow shrimp harvesting in Pumpkin Hill Creek.
- The proposal has been met with opposition from sports fishermen who say that shrimp are an important food source for the fish they angle for.
- The Jacksonville City Council has passed a resolution opposing the proposal.
Jacksonville will fight a state proposal that would open part of Pumpkin Hill Creek to commercial and recreational shrimp harvesting in a state park that lies within the huge Seven Creeks Recreation Area on the Northside.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission voted in February to propose a rule change that would allow shrimp harvesting for the first time since 1994 along a length of Pumpkin Hill Creek from the Nassau River to Tiger Point. The annual harvesting season in the creek would run from September through December.
The commission has scheduled a public workshop from 6-8 p.m. Wednesday in Mayport on the proposed rule. The commission will make a short presentation and then open the floor to comments from the public. The workshop will be at the William “Bill” Gulliford Jr. Community Center at 4875 Ocean St.
The prospect of allowing harvesting in the creek, which is among the Northeast Florida waterways with shrimp nurseries in them, has brought blowback from sports fisherman because shrimp is an important food source for the fish they angle for, including redfish.
City Council member Mike Gay, who is chairman of the Jacksonville Waterways Commission, said he only learned about the proposal when he heard people sounding off during a radio talk radio show.
“This is a hot topic with our sports fishermen,” Gay told council members Tuesday when they unanimously supported his resolution stating the city’s opposition.
City Council member Rory Diamond said it’s taken generations of work on preserving the area where Pumpkin Hill Creek runs through Pumpkin Hill Creek Preserve State Park.
“To allow intensive dropping of nets for shrimp, you’ll start destroying the ecosystem up there,” he said.
The state is considering the rule change to expand opportunities for commercial and recreational shrimp harvesting that has a limited number of places open for such harvesting in Northeast Florida.
The proposal would somewhat alter a rule that’s been in place since 1994 that bans shrimp harvesting on the tributaries of 11 rivers and creeks in Duval and Nassau counties in order to protect shrimp nurseries in them. The rivers and creeks are St. Marys River, Bells River, Jolly River, Amelia River, Jackson Creek, Back River, South Amelia River, Lanceford Creek, Tiger Creek and Tiger Basin, the north fork of Alligator Creek and Nassau River.
Pumpkin Hill Creek is a tributary of Nassau River. All the other closures would remain intact.
The state commission’s staff said in a presentation at the February meeting that having a three-month season at Pumpkin Hill Creek would allow some shrimp harvesting while also keeping protection for “newly hatched shrimp to settle and grow” in the spring and summer.
Gay’s resolution asks the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to attend the April 10 meeting of the Jacksonville Waterways Commission.
The state commission is slated to take a final vote on the rule change in May.
(This story was updated to add new information.)
