Please show your support for the Commercial Fishermen or speak your mind about your own way of life being threatened by submitting a public comment regarding the summary closure of the longline fishery. Follow the “read more” link for how to do this easily. [Read more →]
While I am very happy for the West Coast salmon fishermen, to whom the new Commerce Secretary, coincidentally a former West Coast governor, released some $53 million in disaster funds I can’t help but wonder why them and not others? [Read more →]
<The following represents the opinions of the poster, who is a commercial longline boat owner, not necessarily that of S.O.F.A. or the blog administrators.>
You have to wonder why an “environmentalist” like the guy who calls himself “Ted Williams” (he is NOT the baseball legend, nor does he have any apparent connection to the baseball legend other than using the name.) and apparently runs things on the Fly Rod + Reel Online site would fear honest debate and need to use lies and logical fallacy to rail against commercial fishermen.
[Read more →]
Tired of hearing people claim that they “heard” that eating this fish or that fish was unhealthy? Tired of reading reports that seem to be so far off base about the health hazards of fish that you wonder where the hell they might get their material?
Me too.
The Environmental Defense Fund, a group that gives lip service to helping devise sustainable methods of fishery management while spending huge amounts of money to convince people to not eat the fish we catch, is a prime example. Another is the world famous Monterey Aquarium, a hotbed of misinformation operating under the guise of scientific investigation and receiving much funding and <ahem> guidance from Pew and other associated Environmental Trusts. [Read more →]
While researching some other issues and reading a lot of old and new articles I came across this NOAA press release. It is only six years old (from June of 2003) but it reads like it is from a different world and a different time.
How did fishery management take such a drastic turn for the worse in such a short time?
Continuing efforts to aid the recovery of sea turtle populations, a team of NOAA scientists and U.S. fishermen is developing effective ways to minimize the potential for harming or catching them in commercial longline fisheries. Fishing gear specialists working at the Pascagoula, Miss., laboratory of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries) have completed the first two years of a three-year research program in cooperation with the Bluewater Fishermen’s Association. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is an agency of the Department of Commerce.
“This program is a fine example of a cooperative effort between federal and state research organizations and private industry to solve a complex environmental problem. The positive results will ensure a healthy and richly diverse marine ecosystem,” said Bill Hogarth, director of NOAA Fisheries. “The development of effective measures to minimize sea turtle bycatch will help ensure successful turtle conservation efforts and allow valuable commercial fisheries to continue to operate.”
Co-operative effort? What the hell? “positive results”? Who cares about that. “Allow valuable commercial fisheries to continue to operate”??? Who the hell are these people?
Surely the change from Bill Hogarth to Roy Crabtree couldn’t have poisoned the well so completely and thoroughly. Could it?
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass) and Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) have introduced the 2009 version of the Flexibility In Rebuilding American Fisheries Act. Now, before we all get too excited, bear in mind that essentially the same bill has been introduced and died in committee in both of the last two years.
That said, the bill is cause for some hope because it actually advocates using a bit of common sense and logic along with good science (as opposed to Pew Spew) in regulating our fisheries.
“We should be using sound biology and science when deciding how best to rebuild fish stocks,” Pallone said, adding “unfortunately, the current process of managing our nation’s fisheries is based on arbitrary deadlines set by Congress, which has continued to negatively impact fishing communities.”
Janet Lubchenco has successfully been installed into the seat of power at NOAA by a unanimous Senate vote coming from a unanimous bunch of Senators who apparently either unanimously didn’t understand how her close association with a group like Pew who have no qualms about speaking out on their anti-fishing agendas could possibly constitute a conflict of interest or unanimously didn’t give a crap.
To quote Nils Stolpe writing for FishNet in the fall of 2007:
Before foundations established with mega-corporation funds discovered that just about any “fishing is bad” issue could be turned into a cause célèbre, the regularly recurring articles predicting the destruction of various fisheries seemed to have minimal impact on the fishing industry in general. The anti-fishing flames were often fanned by the media through uninformed reporting, but only relative to a particular issue/area, and cooler heads and more fully informed opinions usually prevailed.
Unfortunately, that is no longer the case. With tens of millions of foundation dollars at their disposal, the anti-fishing activists can afford to do a much better job of buying the scientists, spinning the facts and convincing the public and our elected officials that the manufactured fisheries crises that have been endemic in the public print and broadcast media for as long as those media have been in existence are actually real. The fishermen, the fish and the consuming public deserve a lot more than that.
Here’s hoping she remembers all the words she spoke about good science, the public do certainly deserve a lob more than a government agency controlled by these well financed groups with narrow anti-american worker agendas. However, it is hard to believe there is anything but bad going to come of it.
Lubchenco said she was eager to get started because of pressing burdens on the economy and the environment, including global warming, polluted coastal waters and severely depleted fish populations.
“We really don’t have a choice,” she said in an interview. “We have to move rapidly ahead because of chronic problems that need immediate solutions.”
Don’t have a choice? Why not, are you a woman or a whelk? Move rapidly ahead? Since when did science move rapidly without making mistakes? “chronic problems that need immediate solutions”? There are no simple solutions to complex problems and there are no immediate solutions to chronic problems unless one considers pro-active closures of healthy fisheries just in case it will help an “immediate solution”.
S.S.D.D. Sounds like more justification for “emergency rules” and closures to me.
Information from the following was used in writing this post:
Fishnet article: “Over a Century of Crises”
While the Pew approved and associated nominee to direct future fishery regulation moves steadily closer to confirmation and assuming the chair of power at NOAA, one of NMFS’ own Regional Chairmen accused the Pew Charitable Trusts of publishing “egregious misinformation and blatant nonsense” while preaching their Gospel of imminent fishery collapse by mid-century. [Read more →]
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 →]
The Gloucester Times is running a blistering editorial on their front page taking NMFS to task for waging “out and out war” against the fishery. The NMFS has been rebuffed in its most recent efforts to shut down New England’s fisheries in much the same manner as they need to be rebuffed in their ongoing efforts to shut down the Gulf of Mexico fisheries. [Read more →]
