Some Things Never Change Department.
So, our new President looks for someone to nominate as the new head of NOAA. Maybe things will change for the better soon?
Not likely. [Read more →]
Entries Tagged as 'Uncategorized'
“Florida Sportsman” Promotes Turtle Catching and Soup Making?
We hope the comments are made in jest but considering the number of out of season deer, deer taken at night, and other wildlife violations** we hear about at the hands of the “sportsmen” of Florida, we don’t doubt that these guys would happily butcher this loggerhead they torment for no real reason other than he “pulls hard”. Yeah, that’s some real sport, folks. [Read more →]
Boattracs proves worthless in first emergency
Well we just had the first real emergency on board my own boat since we were forced to install and pay for the ridiculously expensive Boattracs service. When we put the thing on there, one of the ways I justified it to myself and forced myself to accept the fact we were being treated like criminals and forced to carry these things was to tell myself, “Well, at least we’ll have them in case of an emergency.”
Right. [Read more →]
NOAA Is Seeking Comments on Yet Another New Rule
FB08-085 is more good news. Right.
NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries Service) is seeking public comment on a proposed rule that would implement measures to end overfishing of gag and revise shallow-water grouper (SWG) management measures as a result of changes in the stock condition. The most recent assessments for gag and red grouper indicate changes in stock condition. For gag, landings need to be reduced to end overfishing and be consistent with the fishing mortality level needed to harvest the optimum yield. For red grouper, the stock condition has improved and allows for an increase in harvest.
Well, the red grouper thing sounds okay, but are they going to allow you to continue to catch red grouper after the reduced gag grouper quota is caught? I don’t think so.
There is also a provision for closing the “Edges 40-Fathom contour” (what I think we used to call the “Forty Break”?) for one third of every year, from January 1 to April 30. There is another provision to eliminate the end date for the Madison-Swanson and Steamboat Reserves closed areas, effectively barring fishing in those areas forever, no matter what happens to the fisheries. Oh yeah, there is also a provision that says if you have a Federal Permit you have to abide by Federal Regulations no matter WHERE you are fishing. (That plan worked out well for the American West Coast Tuna fleet, who all ended up moving to Mexico and reflagging their vessels, putting that whole fleet of American fishermen out of work and closing all the fish packing plants in Southern California in the process because the American flagged vessels were being forced to work under the most restrictive regulations in the world, despite the fact they were fishing in International waters.)
This bulletin (which you can download here) goes on to justify the “Accountability Measures” which give the NOAA Fisheries Service Assistant Administrator (the NOAAFSAA ?) unprecedented powers to summarily cut off current seasons, shorten future seasons, and generally do whatever they please within the fisheries by referring to the clause in the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation Act that says AMs must be in place for stocks undergoing overfishing by 2010. But didn’t they just get done telling us that red grouper stocks had improved and that allowed for an increase in harvest? Didn’t they read any other clauses in the MSFCA like the ones that say they have to consider the economic impact of their actions on the fishery and the fishermen?
There is a period for public comment that is open until January 2, 2009. I’d suggest you take advantage of that period and make your feelings heard, but personally, I’m getting tired of going through the same thing over and over again while they make it obvious that the only reason they open public comment periods is because they were told to and that they have no intention of listening to or paying the slightest bit of attention to anything the public, particularly that criminal bunch that call themselves “Commercial Fishermen”, have to say.
I think we need to take our problems to a higher authority and hope we can perhaps benefit from some of the promised change that we are supposed to see in our Federal Government over the next four years. It’s either that or find another industry to work in because the government we have now and the Fishery Management we have now are determined to put us all out of business sooner rather than later.
Me, I’m starting to feel like Peter Finch in the movie “Network” who motivated a whole country to stick their heads out the window and scream “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”
Here. Get Twisted. Get Inspired.
“We believe”, says Roy Crabtree
Seems that the man from NOAA has taken on a bit of an almost evangelical belief in fish farming.
“We believe aquaculture can be done in an environmentally responsible and safe way,” NOAA Fisheries regional administrator Roy Crabtree said Thursday. “If it’s done in an environmentally safe way, it will benefit the country.”
Completely aside from the fact that the scope of your job is to watch over fisheries and the fish, not decide what will or what will not benefit “the country”, I’m glad you are a believer, Mr. Crabtree, but not everyone is sold. Take the University of Hawaii and their little study about the impact of fish farms on wild fish, for instance. Sea lice, ugh.
The researchers found that infestation rates of sea lice dramatically increased in wild juvenile salmon migrating past salmon farms on their way to the open sea. The paper concluded that wild salmon fingerlings measuring two inches or less in length suffered increased mortality due to the sea lice infestations. “Sea-cage operations have no way of separating farmed animals from pathogens floating in the ocean. So once these pathogens penetrate the farms, the farms turn into pathogen incubators,” ( University of Hawaii Study Web Site )
Or the “educated opinion” expressed by the folks at Food And Water Watch:
Commercial fish farms can attract and concentrate parasites and disease, which may then spread to wild fish populations. Salmon farms in British Columbia have been tied to sea lice outbreaks in wild populations. Non-indigenous Atlantic salmon from existing fish farms have been found in the ocean and rivers from the Pacific Northwest to Alaska, which has serious implications for wild stocks ( Food and Water Watch Press Release )
Who is to say that anyone will do it in an environmentally safe way, and if that little stipulation isn’t met, what exactly will be the long lasting side effects of offshore fish pans?
Under the Gulf Council plan, federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico would be the first in the nation to be opened to aquaculture. ( Naples Daily News )
Umm, thanks all the same, but couldn’t you find some other area that so many people aren’t depending upon to make a living and pursue a way of life for you latest experiments? You might be sold, Mr. Crabtree, but how about resisting the impulse to sell the rest of us downriver on this issue?
By signing this bill, the President reaffirmed our commitment to protect America’s fisheries and keep our commercial and recreational fishing communities strong.
(The White House, press release January, 2007)
Maybe you should go back and re-read that Magnuson Stevens Act you are so quick to refer to when you are shutting down our fisheries, Mr. Crabtree. You might, upon careful re-reading, see that it also gives you a mandate to protect “the fisheries” and “fishing communities” as well as vested interests the fish.
According to Joe Hendrix of Sea Fish Mariculture in Houston, 457 cages (32 meter diameter) carrying 20 kg/cubic meter of fish could produce the entire annual commercial finfish catch of the Gulf, requiring a sea bottom area of only 800 hectares or about 2,000 acres. Of course you would not want to put the fish in a concentrated area, but would spread them out over the Gulf. The potential for offshore – aquaculture in the Gulf of Mexico offers the US a way to offset its huge seafood trade deficit, and produce its own fish. The Texas aquaculture industry has great potential in the future helping the U.S. offset its seafood trade deficit ( www.thefishsite.com )
Oh, cool. Just 457 giant cages spread around the Gulf could replace the entire output of a whole industry. One company could produce the same amount of finfish that all the commercial fishermen now produce? Sounds like a huge bonanza for that company. Wonder what the downside would be to that?
Based on experience elsewhere, the practice of offshore aquaculture, combined with the influx of farmed fish imports, could threaten the economic wellbeing of the Gulf’s active fishing industries. For example, from 1992 to 2001, the value of the Alaskan salmon harvest plunged from $600 million to a bit more than $200 million, a drop of more than 60 percent. A similar price crash would devastate the U.S. Gulf of Mexico fishing industry, which in 2006 landed more than $41 million worth of cobia, pompano, grouper, and snapper, all valuable finfish. (http://www.commondreams.org/news2007/1024-07.htm)
Does the name “Joe Hendrix” sound familiar to you? Do you wonder why the NMFS Gulf Council has decided that they should be the ones to regulate this industry as a “fishery” rather than get Congress, the EPA, or some other government agency involved?
Not to be a skeptic, or anything, but could it possibly relate to the fact that since 2002 Mr. Joe Hendrix Jr., the President of Gulf Mariculture of Houston, Texas, has been a full voting member of the Gulf Council?
Yes, I think maybe that could be it.
So the Gulf Council, in the face of strong opposition variously characterized as “public outcry” and “legal questions” decided to wait until January when maybe things will calm down a bit to again take up this matter.
The decision came after a key congressman questioned the Gulf Council’s authority to adopt the plan and after thousands of opponents sent letters and dozens unleashed a barrage of questions about the plan at public hearings this week in Mobile. ( Naples Daily News )
If you have any feelings about this plan, you should consider contacting your representatives on the Council and in Congress and asking them to speak up on your behalf. That’s what they are supposed to do for their constituents, last I knew.
“Your” Council members and Congressmen are here, drop them a line or give them a jingle:
Death by Regulation
Bob Jones, of SFA, recently sent these interesting observations and figures to SOFA’s Bob Spaeth. He’s given us permission to reprint the email here, we think it bears some thought.
Greetings,
I was thinking about all the draconian cuts in fishing throughout the United States, so I thought I would look at what regulators have already done to the seafood industry in the southeast. These are the numbers that leapt out at me from my part of the world. We had a robust seafood industry in the southeast before the Magnuson Act was enacted and re-interpreted. As I’m writing this note, the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council is preparing to deal a death blow to the snapper/grouper industry as ordered by NMFS based on their interpretation of a selected portion of Congressional action. All numbers are taken directly from two NMFS publications: FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES, 1984 (page 4) and FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES 2006 (page 6).
The government numbers indicate what regulations have done to a once proud food producing segment of the US economy. If I have copied these numbers down correctly, it appears our industry has almost been managed out of existence for no good purpose. Why do the Councils keep taking the fish?
Bob Jones
| Comparison of Commercial Fishery Landings by State (in million pounds) | ||
|---|---|---|
| State | 1984 | 2006 |
| Florida | 206,679 | 96,255 |
| Alabama | 26,405 | 34,052 |
| Mississippi | 476,997 | 221,838 |
| Louisiana | 1,931,027 | 844,027 |
| Texas | 104,082 | 116,860 |
| Georgia | 15,884 | 7,747 |
| South Carolina | 15,104 | 11,112 |
| North Carolina | 276,219 | 68,641 |
NMFS Looks at Closing More Areas
Hello …….?
I’ve decided there’s a need for a powerful nickle-cadmium battery pack that will run a VMS for 200 hours or roughly eight (8) days. The battery pack, coupled with the flotation devices required to keep it afloat and anchored at a favorite spot in your favorite desert should cost you about $1000. While your VMS sits comfortably at a given spot in your favorite desert, you can be just kickin’ ass at your favorite spot (wherever you choose).
There is a very good probability that NMFS is using VMS data to select heavily fished areas for future closure. They certainly are NOT researching those areas … they are simply picking them based upon the number of boats fishing in those areas.
Logical? Ayup!
Wake up, guys! Do you really think they are trying to help you … or the fish?
Feel Free to Express Yourself
In an effort to keep the main Fishery News blog just that, we’re setting up this second blog that any registered user can contribute to.
Feel free to express your opinion on fishing, fishermen, boats, fish houses, regulations, IFQs, and anything else, particularly if it is going to be of interest to S.O.F.A. members and commercial fishermen in general.
