“Conservation” Group announces plans to step up campaigns.
The Center For Biological Diversity have announced plans to step up their campaigns. This group, somewhat infamous for their original cause, the spotted owl, is another conservation group willing to use hyperbole, poor science and artificially inflated figures (translation: lies) to achieve their extremist goals The group has a history of supporting heavy handed regulation that completely ignores the economic impact of the regulations they propose. They also appear quite proud of their history of attempting to bully by lawsuit or threat of lawsuit our regulatory agencies into rushing into regulations that frequently impose crippling economic penalty on American workers in whatever industry they target next. This group is well funded and despite their frequent use of exaggerated figures, poor science, and a marked tendency to raise a hue and cry of “the sky is falling in”, they appear to be respected, or perhaps feared, in numerous circles of power.
Hyperbole? You bet.
And wherever there’s fishing, there’s bycatch — fisheries’ wasteful and unintentional capture of unwanted species. Commercial fishing creates millions of tons of discarded catch annually, including not just fish species but turtles, marine mammals, sharks, and even seabirds. Appallingly, hundreds of thousands of federally listed loggerhead and leatherback sea turtles are caught each year, with tens of thousands drowning as a result
Center for Biological Diversity “news flash”.
Hundreds of thousands? If there are that many, why are they even listed? If a few hundred fishing vessels kill that many, how many have the rampant over-development of our beaches killed? How many were confused leaving the nest and ultimately killed by the lights of the expensive beach mansions where some of these self righteous conservationists spend their time?
We aren’t the cause, we are just the target.
Fisheries have had catastrophic effects on the ocean by disrupting the food chain, depleting water quality, destroying habitat, harassing and displacing wildlife, and otherwise altering the overall marine ecosystem.
Center for Biological Diversity “news flash”.
Holy Crap.
- “Depleting water quality”? How exactly do I do that?
- “Destroying habitat”? I think rampant over-development to give many of these people a waterfront home to sit in and self righteously proclaim us as the cause of all problems with the oceans has destroyed far more habitat than my fishing efforts have.
- “Harassing and displacing wildlife”? Well, you got me there. I suppose that attempting to catch some of the world’s food supply and bring it to market could be termed “harassing wildlife”. Only by some extremist nut-bags, but it could be.
- “Otherwise altering the overall marine ecosystem.”? No, I’m not copping to this one. MAN is altering the ecosystem of the entire planet. We are the top of the food chain and continue to grow at an alarming rate.
- We pollute the planet with power plants, that kill inshore and juvenile fish.
- We pollute the planet with run-off from our roads and bridges that deplete the water quality.
- We pollute the planet with agricultural run-off that has turned hundreds of square miles of the Gulf of Mexico off the mouth of the Mississippi into a “dead zone”.
- We pollute the planet with oil and chemical storage facilities built on waterways that have occasional spills and fish kills.
- We pollute the planet by altering the very make-up of the atmosphere, causing untold harmful changes to climate worldwide.
Commercial fishing is not the source of the world’s ecological woes. We are simply an easier target than the oil industry, the developers, the shipping industries, and many other factors that cause more harm while doing less good and making far more profit than we ever do.
Me, I’m sick and tired of being a target. If you are too, tell this woman to aim her self righteous attacks somewhere else.
Andrea Treece, Center for Biological Diversity
(415) 436-9682 x 306
atreece@biologicaldiversity.org
