Stocks are up!
Thursday,20 May,2010 14:48:38
Of late we have been preoccupied with the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but not all news is bad.
In fact, 10 days ago, in its annual Status of U.S. Fisheries report to Congress, NOAA reported four additional stocks have been fully rebuilt and that no stocks — none — have been added to the list of stocks undergoing overfishing.
This is a big deal, even if you don't read about it in the New York Times, and not just for swordfish, Atlantic scup, Atlantic black sea bass, and St. Matthew Island blue king crab in the Bering Sea.
It's a big deal for U.S. fisheries because it shows that fishery management is a collaborative effort among scientists, regulators and industry that can work.
Overall, 85 percent (212 of 250) of stocks were free from overfishing, and 77 percent (157 of 203) were not overfished.
Four stocks were downgraded to "overfished" and three that had been subject to overfishing are no longer so. Two stocks whose status had been regarded as unknown are now known to be free of overfishing.
2009 was the first year since 1997 that no stocks were added to the list of those subject to overfishing.
We congratulate NMFS and the U.S. fishing industry for their persistent efforts in the evolution of American fisheries.
That said, it is high time the agency resolved the communications hurdle it has embraced with respect to the concept of overfishing.
Most of us understand that "overfishing" reflects effort and that "overfished" reflects abundance.
This is a distinction with a real difference that unfortunately the mainstream media has been unable (or too uninterested) to parse out. As a result, the industry generally is blamed any time a stock is described as overfished, when in reality you could assert, with technical accuracy, that the dodo bird is overfished.
In fairness, fishing is often covered by so-called general assignment reporters who could easily miss such a nuance and most often do.
The government owes it to the people to help get the story straight.
Thank you for your time.
Jerry Fraser
Editor & Publisher, National Fisherman
www.nationalfisherman.com
Seeking a silver lining
Monday,17 May,2010 10:46:14
There's nothing like a massive (and still growing) oil spill to mobilize politicians and government officials.
The Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sank nearly a month ago, killing 11 people and triggering the disastrous Gulf of Mexico spill that threatens the Gulf Coast and the region's commercial fishing fleets.
And as officials continued to scramble to find a way to cap the still gushing well, several West Coast senators introduced legislation Thursday that would permanently ban offshore drilling in all federal waters off the California, Oregon and Washington coasts.
Northwest conservation and fishing groups said in a teleconference regarding the bill's introduction that the gulf spill should spur action to halt ocean oil drilling and accelerate efforts to wean America off its oil dependency.
Then today comes word that the Nova Scotia government is extending its ban on offshore drilling on Georges Bank. Combined with the ban protecting the larger U.S. section of Georges that President Obama announced earlier this year, U.S. harvesters can breathe a little easier knowing that drilling will be verboten on the bountiful fishing grounds there.
If there's a silver lining to the Gulf of Mexico spill (and right now, that's a pretty big if), maybe it's that other important U.S. fishing grounds will be preserved and remain free of offshore drilling. You just wish it didn't take an ecological disaster to get it done.
Thank you for your time.
Linc Bedrosian
Senior Editor, National Fisherman
www.nationalfisherman.com
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Promises, promises
Monday,10 May,2010 09:06:12
"BP is taking very seriously its responsibility... All legitimate claims will be paid."
So said British Petroleum CEO Tony Hayward two days ago in an interview in Washington, D.C.
Sound familiar? It should. Just over 20 years ago, Exxon's Don Cornett told fisherman R.J. Kopchak and others in Cordova, Alaska, "You are lucky. You have got Exxon. We take care of our problems."
We know how that worked out. Exxon's legal battalions spent the better part of a generation contesting punitive damages while 6,000 of the original plaintiffs in the lawsuit died off.
Alaskans like Kopchak know all too well what residents of the gulf states can expect if this spill turns into anything resembling the mess that was made of Prince William Sound in 1989.
"[Cordova] exhibited every kind of social stress you can imagine," Stan Jones, spokesman for the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens' Advisory Council, told the Associated Press in a story published Tuesday. "Alcoholism went up. Suicide went up. Family violence went up. Divorces went up. Of course, bankruptcies and various kinds of financial failures went up with the attendant stress on families."
They're getting the picture in Bayou Caddy, Miss., where Mike Thornhill sat in the wheelhouse of his shrimper with a bottle of Jim Beam and told a reporter from Alaska Dispatch, "I'm about to lose my mind here," he said. "I'm drinking it away tonight... We are living hell."
On Sunday, NOAA closed thousands of square miles of the Gulf of Mexico to commercial and recreational fishing for a minimum of 10 days because of the spill.
Thornhill's season is scheduled to open in three weeks.
"The oil industry," Kopchak wrote in National Fisherman two years ago, following the final Exxon Valdez verdict, "will not make you whole.
"The only hope," he said, "is in prevention."
Thank you for your time.
Jerry Fraser
Editor & Publisher, National Fisherman
www.nationalfisherman.com