The Way You See It

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.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs37NSLy3z4

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I doubt it could get any worse but with a changing administration we at least have a hope that the new Secretary of Commerce (and All Things Fishing Related) will at least have some valid experience, maybe he’ll even care about the fishermen almost as much as the fish.

Naah,  what am I saying.  No sense getting my hopes up too much.

Anyway, I was reading the section of my very own personal personalized google home page titled (creatively enough) “Fishing Gulf of Mexico” and was led to this article from “Grist”, a website that calls themselves a place for “Environmental News and Commentary”.  I’ve never stumbled across the site before so I’m not sure what their particular stance on many issues might be, but there was a lot of sense in this article about The Secretary of Commerce job.  It was titled “Like a Fish Out of Water” which I found amusing in the saddest sort of way.

It was written by Andrew Sharpless who is the CEO of Oceana which is yet one more Pew funded anti-fishing organizations with a “Protect Our Oceans” agenda that seeks to take away the right of commercial fisherman to pursue a living fishing in those Oceans that they seem to think are “theirs” but not really “ours”.

Despite my general distrust of his group and dislike of their agenda as well as their methods, I found some common ground between us in our take on just who is running the agencies that have come to have so much of a negative impact on our lives and our way of life.  Unfortunately, we split almost immediately when it became evident that his biggest concern was that the current Secretary had been far to easy on the bad guys,  and that the bad guys would be us, the commercial fishermen.

I believe that the fact that Environmental Activists are taking such an early interest in who is going to be appointed to positions in the next administration that will have a bearing on their future agendas is one more indication of how well organized, funded and dedicated those that are fighting to have us shut down are.  If it isn’t already too late for the American commercial fisherman, it will be soon if we don’t step up to the plate and take a pro-active interest in what is being done by our govenment in the name of conservation.

Like a fish out of water

One more environmental Cabinet position that counts particularly for oceans

In its feature “Stocking the Cabinet” Grist speculated on Barack Obama’s potential nominees for the “top environmental jobs” in his administration.

For the oceans, however, the most pertinent post isn’t the head of the EPA, or the secretary of agriculture, energy, or interior, all of which were included in Grist’s guessing game. Guess what is?

Hint: The position is currently filled by a man who made his fortune selling Froot Loops and Frosted Flakes.

Give up?

It’s the Secretary of Commerce, a post now held by Carlos Gutierrez, late of Kellogg. His background as a business executive may have led Gutierrez to believe that being Secretary of Commerce was about, you know, commerce.

Surprise: The Department of Commerce’s top duty is running U.S. fisheries. NOAA accounts for 60 percent of the department’s budget and one-third of its staff. And it’s NOAA that oversees all fishing within 200 nautical miles of our coastline.

quoted from the Grist post.  Full text is here:  Gristmill blog

You could see the same “Fishing Gulf of Mexico” feed from google that I referred to and subscribe to it if you use an RSS reader by clicking here.

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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:

Florida Congressional Members
Gulf Council Voting Members

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The South Atlantic Council recently passed an “interim rule” (including a 4 month grouper closure) which completely ignored important stipulations of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation Act, even though they (and the other Councils) all continue to point to selected and narrow provisions of the Act to justify the heavy handed  over-regulation of all our fisheries that has become “business as usual” for the entire N.M.F.S.  As all fishermen in the South Atlantic region await approval or denial by Carlos Gutierrez, Secretary of Commerce, I’d like to point out that not all the members of that council approved of or agreed with the passing of this “new rule”.

Speaking out and speaking up, in releasing a minority opinion, were these folks on that council, and I would like to publicly thank them for that action.

Rita Merritt, Council Member, North Carolina
Tom Swatzel, Council Member, South Carolina
John Wallace, Council Member, Georgia
Tony Iarocci, Council Member, Florida
Mark Robson, Council Member, Florida

That Minority Opinion, in full, is here…. [Read more →]

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At the suggestion of Glen Brooks, the President of the GFA, who is currently very actively campaigning for IFQs in the Gulf of Mexico grouper fishery, I visited the web site of an association that calls themselves “Food & Water Watch” this evening.

Apparently Mr. Brooks didn’t look too far into the site before suggesting people visit it because I found this opinion of his group’s main focus…

Our oceans and marine resources in the EEZ are public property –– meant to be shared by and used to equally benefit all U.S. citizens. Unfortunately, recent trends have been toward management that gives exclusive access to parts of our oceans or certain resources in them to private entities for economic profits.

For example, many of our popular seafood choices, like red snapper, are depleted and have too many people trying to catch too few fish. Our federal fish managers have developed a new system to control how many red snapper get caught each year and which people do the catching. But the system they put in place tends to reward those that can catch more fish quickly (like large companies rather than small scale and perhaps more sustainable community-based fishing), because the right to fish is often granted based on how much fish an individual (or company) caught in recent years.

That seems like a well thought out and reasonable opinion to me.  Might go a long way toward pushing me off the fence I’ve been on regarding the issue.

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After much debate and deliberation the NMFS has decided upon a new motto.

As they are a government agency, they felt they should have a motto to define their objectives, which might not always be abundantly clear.  A grant was sought after and the intrepid researchers managed to corral some 2.3 million USD to finance the studies.  Words were considered, words were chosen and then it was all sent to a committee meeting in Las Vegas that took place over a five day weekend in late June.  There the words were reviewed, talked about, considered some more and then sent to the peer review subcommittee for further review.  While the main committee spent some time and grant money in the main casino, the subcommittee met in the sub-casino and discussed and considered some more.  After two more days of intense work on the part of these dedicated scientific types, the motto was scheduled for tentative agreement at a date to be determined as soon as the casino closed or as soon as the five day weekend came to an end, whichever occurred first.  In order to prevent any more over fishing from occurring the weekend was declared over a mere four and a half days after it began and all respective committee members retired to their quarters to hotly debate and discuss the issue over ten hours of intense sleep.

An entry is scheduled to be inserted in the Federal Register by an as yet un-named Federal Bureau of Something or Other and the public comment period will be publicly announced at that time in a relatively public manner.  Honest.

We here at the Settee Club have scoured the records of the peer review and have determined that the new motto for the NMFS is a quote from the great scientist Albert Einstein, a great and wonderful paragon of fishery science if ever there was one.  It is as follows:

“If the facts don’t fit the theory, change the facts.” — Albert Einstein

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…who would you be betting on?

This is from a Pew Trusts press release.

Opportunity for Bush Administration to Enhance its Ocean Legacy Threatened by Shortsighted Interests

Release Type: Pew Press Release

Pew Contact: Jo Knight, 202.664.4504

Washington, DC - 04/10/2008 - Ocean luminaries and fisheries experts today recognized the Bush administration for its efforts to end overfishing and preserve ecologically significant areas of the ocean. They also urged the administration to stand up to powerful fishing interests that could jeopardize recent successes in ocean policy.

“During his final months in office, President Bush has the opportunity to enhance his ocean legacy,” said Dr. Joshua Reichert, managing director of the Pew Environment Group. “The administration must stand firm against attempts by those in the fishing industry and on some of the nation’s fishery management councils to undermine its significant achievements for marine conservation.”

Full text available here.

It seems that we really might want to learn a bit more about just who this “Pew Trust” is and what their agenda might be. It seems to involve putting American fishermen out of business, amongst other things.

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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

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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?

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In case you haven’t yet had the pleasure of learning how to remove a large circle hook from a cardboard box at a seminar funded by the government and tought by some people who may have never SEEN a sea turtle in the wild, let alone inadvertantly hooked one…

We give you this years required learning courses. [Read more →]

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