Well, I hate to say it, but “I told you so.”
Seems like only yesterday but it was actually all of two weeks and two days ago when I wrote this cynical little comment:
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.
Well, read the Fishery News blog and you will see that, unfortunately, the NMFS just couldn’t wait to prove me right.
To quote Gilbert Gottfried…. WHAT THE F#%&*!K ?
With almost a full month left to go in the public comment period and with their own figures showing that gag grouper currently have a biomass of 99% what is needed to support maximum sustainable yield…they ram in an interim rule? Ain’t that against the rules?
By the way, that’s some pretty accurate figgerin’ there Mr. Fishery Scientist. 99%?? Hell, I can’t go fishing for 10 days and come to the dock with a 99% accurate guess at what the biomass is in my ice hold, let alone the whole damn Gulf of Mexico. 99%, I’m stunned and amazed and my heart leaps with joy. Why, things are not as dire as we thought. Things are looking good. Red grouper is healthy and not overfished. Gags are at 99% of the BMSY.(does that rhyme with whimsey?) What could be…….errr……hold on a second. Gags are what?
“Population levels of gag are healthy, but overfishing is occurring.”
Well it must be some truly incompetent overfishing if they can only get the BMSY down to 99%. How much overfishing does it take to do that, anyway? A couple of extra hooks a day? They have really got to be kidding, don’t they?
Nope.
Not only are they not kidding, but their response to this 1% lack of biomass and this phantom unsupportable charge of “overfishing” is to not only drop the TAC (Total Allowable Catch) but to drop it 24% below what the average landings from 1986 to 2004 were. The average has been about 1.7 million pounds per year and it is now set at 1,320,000 lbs for 2009. And on top of that, they thought the situation was dire enough to justify an interim rule so that they can put the thing into effect before the public comment period is even supposed to be over.
Seriously.
According to Steve Brown of the
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
Gulf of Mexico gag landings avg 1,715,178 lbs/year from 1986 to 2004
Also, according to Mr. Brown:
Catch per trip statewide exhibited an increasing trend from 1986-2005 with the highest
yield in 2005 at 203 kg per trip. This trend has it’s heaviest contribution from Gulf of
Mexico landings which exhibit a similar trend in catch per trip.
So, we take the fact that gag landings averaged 1.71 million lbs over almost a 20 year period and add to that the fact that the average catch per trip has been slowly but steadily rising over the same period, toss in the fact that the vast majority of gags are still caught by hook and line (rod and reel) boats and the fact that no new permits have been created for quite some time now which would seem to indicate fishing effort hasn’t substantially increased…and what sort of a conclusion would YOU come to? To me it sounds like things are working out okay, looking good, going fine.
But no. The increase in catch is apparently because we have decided to overfish the resource.
The total lack of any evidence that the stock is being depleted means nothing. The fact that the same data they have would return a conclusion that the fishery is healthy and NOT overfished if they used a more reasonable method rather than the extremely overly “err-on-the-side-of-caution-it-is-only-people’s-way-of-life” method they choose to use doesn’t bother them one bit, it seems.
Dr. Trevor Kenchington, at the request of The Gulf Partnership for Marine Fisheries looked at their studies and wrote a detailed report showing that given any small change in one presumptive factor they use to calculate the status, the question of overfished or not would be a resounding “no, absolutely not”. but they chose to ignore that. Dr. Kenchington said “I argue that that estimate is implausibly low and is not consistent with what is known of the population dynamics of gag grouper.” but they chose to ignore that. Anectdotal evidence, the rising catch rates with no corresponding increase in pressure for one, would seem to echo that, but they choose to ignore that. No matter what, if the conclusion doesn’t match the one that the NMFS enters into things wanting in the first place, they just find another way to run the models to make the results come out the way they want, no matter how ridiculous and contradictory it sounds. In the meantime they arrogantly step all over the public commentary period and make it clear how little what anyone has to say about the matter actually means to them as they slam dunk the fishery with an interim rule.
Read this one again…
“Population levels of gag are healthy, but overfishing is occurring. “
http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/fishwatch/species/gag.htm
I’d like to know just how the hell they determined that. I mean, if the population is healthy , did overfishing just start yesterday so it isn’t reflected in the population or does someone over there at the NOAA have a crystal ball.
(By the way, if someone at NOAA DOES have a crystal ball, could you lend it to the guys in the weather department once in a while?)
I mean, come on now. I’m all for a good careful approach and I’m getting pretty much used to being hosed in these matters but this is getting ridiculous. Their own information leads them to post this on the www.nmfs.noaa.gov site:
“The Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council has not approved a new overfished definition for gag; therefore, the stock status is listed as undefined. Based on definitions recently used for other species and results from the latest stock assessment, gag would not be considered overfished. “
Say what? Based on the way they have always done it, gag would not be considered overfished….so they are going to ram an interim rule down our throat to quell public comment while they come up with a new algorithm that will make the figures come out OVERFISHED!!!
Aha! Got it now.
I’ve about had it. I just really want to know who thinks this stuff up.
