It Just Gets Worse and Worse
The Gulf Council, in an apparent bid to completely seal the fate of the Gulf Of Mexico fishing industry, has given approval for large scale offshore fish farming to proceed. They do this in the face of objections from seemingly every single involved group and person with the exception of those who stand to personally profit from this plan and in the face of a very real question of whether they have any authority to rule on this issue at all.
They are supposed to protect the resource, which they do aggressively when the path to doing so involves closing fisheries and putting fishermen out of work. However, they take things into their own hands, usurp power that should not be theirs, and give a small special interest group, one led by a voting member of the Gulf Council (who abstained from the heavily favorable vote on the issue although we can be quite sure he certainly didn’t abstain from convincing his “colleagues” to vote in favor of the aquaculture his company will profit mightily from) permission to decimate the commercial fishing industry and defile the ecology of the Gulf of Mexico to an unprecedented degree.
Some amazing tidbits:
- Harlon Pearce, a council board member, said farming would create jobs for struggling fishermen. Fishermen, he said, “have been over-regulated to death and we don’t have enough wild production because of regulatory problems. “ Well, hell, Harlon, just who has been “over-regulating us to death” and how in the blue blazes will fish farms create jobs for fishermen?
- Supporters of farms estimate that it would take only 2,000 acres of fish farms in the Gulf to match the amount of fish caught every year in the wild, Well hooray. Look out all the fishermen, they are going to put every single one of you out of business with a mere 3.1 sqare miles.
- John Ericsson of Bio-Marine Technologies, another company poised to make millions while commercial fishermen are put on the docks for months at a time, made this persuasive argument: “Just think if someone was able to wipe out our cows and other land creatures with an anthrax. Where would we get our protein from?” he said. Well yes, John. I often stay awake at night worrying about someone wiping out ALL our cows and other land creatures with “an anthrax”. Of course, as of right now what few people would be left after all the cows and land creatures were gone could get their protein from the commercial fishermen you are planning on putting out of business, but hey, what’s a bit of detail when you are working a good scare tactic.
The folks checking in against the proposal were scientists, environmental groups, commercial fishing groups, charter fishing groups, recreational fishing groups, in fact, rarely have so many of those groups been in such agreement on one issue. Despite all the objection and despite the very real question of whether the Gulf Council really has any business trying to regulate Offshore Aqualculture as if it were another fishery, the council passed the issue by a vote of 11 – 5, once again making it clear that they don’t care what anybody says, they are going to do whatever the hell they want.
(information used in this post was gleaned from an Associated Press release that can be found here)
