Posted on 01/15/2012 7:24:06 AM PST by bksanders
… Commercial fisherman Jonathan Robinson took issue with that. “Those resources belong to the public,” he said. “They’re not just exclusively for the rich, who can afford boats and trips to the coast. Commercial fishing is a channel that provides access to these resources for all the citizens — for the blacks in the cities and the poor working people in farm towns in North Carolina.”Commercial fisherman Chris McCaffity of Morehead City echoed his sentiment. “I recently had a disabled veteran thank me for defending his freedom to eat the fish he once caught himself,” McCaffity said.
Over the course of its next three meetings, the Marine Fisheries Committee also will be studying the impact of eliminating trawl boat fishing in North Carolina.
Foster said that would mean the end of shrimping in North Carolina, which he estimates makes up almost a quarter of the state’s commercial fishing industry. It also would eliminate much of the state’s flounder fishing. “It would wipe out all of the fishing communities on the west side of Pamilico Sound,” he said.
McCaffity is scheduled to speak at the next meeting of the Marine Fisheries Committee at 1 p.m. Feb. 2 on the third floor of the state legislative building. There was no public comment period at the first meeting.
(Excerpt) Read more at carolinajournal.com ...
“Catch Shares” metioned in your post are right out of Agenda 21. The PCSD recommemded “establishing an allocation system in which a limited number of fishermen may work”.
Catch Shares have devastated the New Englang fisheries to the point that a large part of the fleet is tied to the dock and the Gov. of Mass has requested $21million in economic disaster aid for the fishing industry.
NOAA Administrator Lubchenco promptly requested $54 million to expand it to all American fisheries even taking money out of slim research budgets to promote it.
The enviro’s tout it as the best thing under the sun yet it does nothing for conservation as the total allowable catch is not reduced. It does privitize the marine resources into the hands of a few “winners” that the govt. picks.
Another interesting point is that EDF published the Catch Share implementation manual and the current Head Adm. of NOAA, Jane Lubchenco is a former Vice Chair of EDF.
Wonder who is going to end up owning these allocation’s down the road? HMMMMMMM
Also, Iceland’s economy was ruined by their venture with Catch Shares to the point that the Icelandic fishermen went to the U.N. Human Rights Commission who ruled that Catch Shares are a violation of the Convention on Human Rights.
84% of seafood consumed in the US is imported now and we have a trade deficit over $10 billion. This is re-distribution of American wealth. The fisheries are for the most part extremly healthy. The last thing we need to be doing is shutting down more of our natural resource production.
See tagline below.
If the problem is a lack of fish, the solution is proven and easy: MAKE MORE FISH!
This has been established with everything from mammals, birds, insects and even plants. Breed a whole bunch of them for release, and though the attrition is high, pretty soon you are up to your elbows in critters.
The technology for doing this with fish is fairly inexpensive, just needing a tug boat, pontoons, and a double or triple drop net. It’s called deep water aquaculture.
The tug takes the pontoons out to sea, far enough away from the coast to avoid polluting the “arable ocean” near the coast. Ideally in the lee of a rocky island. Then it drops its nets and put wild hatchlings of the desired type in them. The current cleans and aerates the water, and the fish are fed along with antibiotics.
When they are mature enough the nets are slowly dragged back to where wild populations of those fish live and they are released with the wild population.
The end result is that, again, attrition is high, but the newly released fish mature and mate with the wild fish, and are generally healthier and better fed, so the wild fish population is improved both in numbers and quality.
Other animals and fish eating them also improve because of a better diet.
Hardly anyone is going to read and digest that.
It makes way too much sense.
In Iowa City, IA
Oath given to Hayden Fry.
Please consider joining McCaffitys efforts.
You did not indicate it was that simple, but some other posters did. I simply responded to you as the OP.
I do think that part of your premise is flawed - in that it is fine to “leave the commercial fishermen the hell alone” when the commercial fishermen are not acting on “their” property. Were the commercial guys using their own resources, then the conservative position would be to leave them the hell alone.
That is not the case with the fisheries. This is why it is not a clear liberal conservative issue and cannot be. The fisheries are in fact owned by the sports guys just as much as by the commercial guys and actually by all of us as much as any of us.
Commercial fishing has the potential to ruin the fishery for everybody forever, which will then ruin the value of coastal properties for everybody forever. This is a fact.
It does, and not just to government. It brings in many more dollars to many more people and there's no way that this will ever change, unless the commercial guys ruin the fishery for everyone - which they have the potential to do - then we all lose. Commercial guys make a living by removing as many fish as possible from the ocean. Sports guys make a living by having as many fish remain in the ocean as possible. Now which is really the long term business friendly and opportunity friendly solution?
You are half right, but because you were only half right, you came to the wrong conclusion. By your own admission, sports fishing brings in more revenue. Now why is that? BECAUSE SPORTSFISHING CREATES A MUCH BIGGER ECONOMY FOR FAR MORE PEOPLE GIVING FORE MORE PEOPLE A CHANCE TO SHARE IN THE ECONOMY THAT THE OCEAN BRINGS. And yes, the result if more tax revenue, but like Reagan tax cuts, the primary reason to do it is to create more opportunity for more people.
A damn good man, Coach Fry!
Those idiots have the luxury of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to be stupid.
Yet they stomp on it's foundation every minute of every hour with every breath.
You make some good points, which is why I said, numerous times, that it is not a pure argument either way. It is also why I said IMO - meaning I was leaving room for the debate.
Your argument, however, is extremely weak in that you say the answer is to leave it alone. The fact sir is that fishing is getting worse and worse and worse every year for both the commercial and the sports guys. Left alone, we won’t have either industry for much longer and then the entire tourism and real estate industries on the coast will further collapse, and then we are all screwed.
Leaving it alone is not a viable answer. I wish it were.
Correct, nothing wrong with farming fish. If anyone wants a lesson on this look at the number and size of the fish people caught off the beach back in the fifties and a couple of miles out. Go try and catch them today.
I guess it hasn’t dawned on you that there are less and less ocean fish being caught every year then? The buggy whip industry analogy was not perfect, but it was somewhat legit.
This is a very tough problem with no clear ideological answer. In most instances, government intervention means some bureaucrat telling someone what they can do with their own property. The ocean is not anyone’s “own” property, therefore all of the property rights arguments and other clean clear conservative arguments DO NOT APPLY. They just do not.
It appears to be "creating more economic activity" by artifically making it less productive. It's like banning bulldozers so that you can create more jobs for people with shovels.
That's the dumbest analogy attempt yet on this thread. I assume the dentist pull the teeth of only willing customers and they do it on their own property. I don't think the ocean is owned by the commercial guys.
Sport fishermen, sport charter captains, and commercial fishermen.
I don't put the sport charters in the same category as sport fishermen because they are also selling a product, their services.
Nice try, but another failed analogy. Your bulldozer shovel analogy would only work if the sports fishermen were attempting to supply food by hook and line versus the commercial guys with nets. But that is not the sports fisher economy at all. It is not food based. Again, it's a tough argument to quantify because no one owns the ocean but we all depend on it and we depend on it because our economy is dependent on it in many ways -- food being only a small part of that though. The sports fish economy is about jobs in hotels and restaurants and in real estate and in the recreation boat industry at all levels. Coastal environs with recreation as a main driver are thriving and clean and bustling and create jobs and opportunity on many more fronts than commercial fishing does. Now that's no problem until one industry threatens the viability of another.
You are right, at least three different groups - and only the enviro nazi’s and the sports fishermen are easy to pin down from an ideological standpoint. That’s clearly left v right. The commercial guys, the charter guys (you are right, a hybrid) and others are all in a fuzzy ideologically impure middle ground.
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