Free Republic

With a single-minded commitment to catch shares, EDF since 2005 has received more than $30 million in funding from three private philanthropies, according to a report of public databases set to be published by fisheries consultant and columnist Nils Stolpe, who made his research available to the Times. Stople reports that the largest benefactor of EDF has been the Walton Foundation, which is tied to the global retailing and commodities giant Walmart and has given EDF more than $20 million in fishery-related grants. In addition, EDF has received more than $9 million from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation for...

Barrack Obama came to office with an agenda to fundamentally change America.  An element of his agenda is a plan, known as catch shares, to restructure the nation's fishing industry.  The author of his plan is Dr. Jane Lubchenco, the environmentalist rock star and former vice chairperson of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).  When it comes to the oceans, the protection of fish, and the punishment of the evil fishermen, Dr. Lubchenco is as extreme as Obama's former green jobs czar, Van Jones. Obama, with no managerial experience himself, didn't simply make Dr. Lubchenco one of his numerous czars --...

One of the last runs of wild coho salmon in California has surged into the Lagunitas Creek watershed in western Marin County, bringing renewed hope to fisheries experts, watershed managers and those who have devoted their lives to salmon procreation. The endangered fish had all but disappeared over the past two years, creating fear among biologists that the species was in the midst of a death spiral. Then, during rains this past week, the fish arrived and began laying eggs in the creek and tributaries, which wind through the lush San Geronimo Valley. Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/12/16/MNCS1GQ185.DTL#ixzz18ac9iEgg

The state of Alaska filed a lawsuit Tuesday in an effort to stop a federal agency's plan to protect endangered sea lions by restricting fishing in the western Aleutian Islands. According to Parnell's office, up to 900 people are employed by fleets in the areas where fishing will be restricted. It says the plan would cost fishery losses of tens of millions of dollars annually, and it believes the federal agency committed procedural violations that limited input from the public and experts.

Environmentalists, already peeved with the administration’s handling of the Gulf oil spill, are accusing President Obama of breaking his campaign pledge to end the slaughter of whales. The Obama administration is leading an effort within the International Whaling Commission to lift a 24-year international ban on commercial whaling for Japan, Norway and Iceland, the remaining three countries in the 88-member commission that still hunt whales. The administration argues that the new deal will save thousands of whales over the next decade by stopping the three countries from illegally exploiting loopholes in the moratorium. But environmentalists aren't buying it. "That moratorium...

PROSPECT HARBOR, Me. — The women in their smudged aprons here at the sardine cannery work together in mesmerizing synchronization. Their hands flying, they fill the empty tins that clatter along the conveyer belt, packing in pieces of cut herring like, well, so many sardines. On April 18, the clanking will cease. The bells and buzzers that regulate the pace of packing will fall silent. The old plant, the last sardine cannery in the United States, is shutting down. Once a thriving national industry — and the backdrop of John Steinbeck’s gritty “Cannery Row” — sardine canneries have been dwindling...

The Obama administration is proposing significant new spending on a proposed cap-and-trade regulatory scheme for fisheries -- a major overhaul in fishery management and a bid to halt the decline of wild fish stocks.

PEOPLE on Kenya's northern coast have one thing to thank Somali pirates for – better fishing. In the past illegal commercial trawlers operated off Somalia's coast and scooped up the fish. Now fishermen from neighbouring Kenya say the trawlers are not coming because of pirates. "There are a lot of fish now. There is more fish than people can actually use because the international fishermen have been scared away by the pirates," said Athman Seif, the director of the Malindi Marine Association in the coastal city of Malindi. On one early morning four fishermen jumped out of their boat and...

October 5, 2009 - Alexandria, Va. – A sweeping oceans and Great Lakes management policy document proposed by the Obama Administration will have a significant impact on the sportfishing industry, America’s saltwater anglers and the nation’s coastal communities. The draft policy, the Interim Report of the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force, issued on September 17, will govern federal Pacific and Atlantic Ocean waters and Great Lakes resource conservation and management and will coordinate these efforts among federal, state and local agencies. This past June, President Obama created the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force, led by the Chair of the Council...

Obama White House to 60,000,000 Anglers: We Don't Need You Obama White House takes on 60,000,000 American anglers. (Hawaii Leisure) A recently released White House document could result in the closures of sport fishing in salt and freshwater areas.Shimano reported: Feds to 60 Million American Anglers: We don't need you A recently published administration document outlines a structure that could result in closures of sport fishing in salt and freshwater areas across America. The White House created an Interagency Oceans Policy Task Force in June and gave them only 90 days to develop a comprehensive federal policy for all U.S....

PORTLAND, Maine — A new Coast Guard rule has closed down fishing grounds around a remote Maine island following the discovery of unexploded bombs on the ocean bottom from when the Navy used the rocky outcropping as an aerial bombing range. The Coast Guard put the rule into effect last week. It establishes a safety zone banning mariners from the shallow lobster-rich waters around Seal Island.

(McDonald’s buys millions of pounds of hoki each year for Filet-O-Fish sandwiches. Now, conservationists say the New Zealand fish is being depleted.) Ever wonder what kind of fish end up in a Filet-O-Fish sandwich? The answer is usually hoki, a bug-eyed sea creature found deep in the Pacific waters of New Zealand. But it turns out that exporting millions of pounds of the fish each year -- McDonald’s alone at one time used 15 million pounds annually -- is depleting the hoki supply and pitting conservationists against commercial interests. “We have major concerns,” said Peter Trott, the fisheries program manager...

Entire populations of North American fish already are being affected by several emerging diseases, a problem that threatens to increase in the future with climate change and other stresses on aquatic ecosystems, according to a noted U.S. Geological Survey researcher giving an invited talk on this subject today at the Wildlife Disease Association conference in Blaine, Wash. “A generation ago, we couldn’t have imaged the explosive growth in disease issues facing many of our wild fish populations,” said Dr. Jim Winton, a fish disease specialist at the USGS Western Fisheries Research Center. “Most fish health research at that time was...

Lobster is a New England tradition often associated with luxury. These days, more people are able to tie up their bibs and melt down the butter because lobster prices have sunk to a new low. While this is great news for consumers, fishermen are forced to find new ways to make money. THE FISHERMAN Bernie Feeney is the president of the Massachusetts Lobstermen's Assocation. He's been fishing for 31 years and he still loves his job. "I love fishing, but I'm not crazy about the business at this point," he said. Since October, lobstermen have been trapped by the economic...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Yukon River smokehouses should be filled this summer with oil-rich strips of king salmon — long used by Alaska Natives as a high-energy food to get through the long Alaska winters. But they're mostly empty. The kings failed to show up, and not just in the Yukon. One Alaska river after another has been closed to king fishing this summer because significant numbers of fish failed to return to spawn. The dismally weak return follows weak runs last summer and poor runs in 2007, which also resulted in emergency fishing closures. "It is going to be a...

Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries biologists are preparing to eliminate a cluster of invasive fish known as tilapia that have been found in waters off Plaquemines Parish. Tilapia is a popular imported and farmed fish served in restaurants across the U.S. Native to Africa, the fish could devastate native species important to recreational and commercial fisheries, scientists fear. The Wildlife and Fisheries Commission declared an emergency Thursday, which will allow agents to kill tilapia in an isolated part of Plaquemines Parish. The process of poisoning the fish with heavy applications of a substance called rotenone will take about two...

UNITED NATIONS — Thirteen years after the world rallied to curb overfishing, most nations are failing to abide by the U.N.'s code of conduct for managing fisheries, scientists found. The U.S., Canada, Australia, Norway, Iceland and Namibia were the only nations that scored above a 60 percent compliance rate, the equivalent of a barely passing "D" grade, according to the marine scientists' research. The survey published online Wednesday and in the journal Nature on Thursday raises troubling questions about how the world's marine fisheries can continue to supply the main source of protein for many on the planet. "The overall...

Fish farming has had a bad rap, but will continue to grow quickly, may be the only way to meet rising demand for seafood and isn't necessarily an environmental problem, a U.S. scientist says. The catch from traditional fishing fisheries has remained about constant for 20 years, but production from aquaculture has risen 8.8 per cent per year since 1985, James S. Diana of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor said in an assessment published Friday.

....and environmental leaders from northwest California went to Omaha to ask Buffett to tear down......buffett gives Billions to the Gates foundation.....

Six federally protected sea lions were apparently shot to death on the Columbia River as they lay in open traps put out to ensnare the animals, which eat endangered salmon. State and federal authorities are investigating. The discovery came one day after three elephant seals were found shot to death at a breeding ground in central California. Trapping will be suspended during the investigation, said Rick Hargrave, a spokesman for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife who was at the scene Sunday.