Greenpeace, the radical ENGO that is constantly trying to legitimize its existence based on crisis creation and innuendo is in anti fishing overdrive.

Last week we posted a link to this article: Greenpeace attacks University of Washington fishery scientist Ray Hilborn. link  Greenpeace unleashed a broadside against the scientist. Greenpeace is attempting to label Hilborn an “overfishing denier,” comparing the professor to so-called climate-change deniers who are a minority in a scientific community that overwhelmingly accepts that fossil-fuel combustion contributes to global warming.

The premise is that Hilborn didn’t disclose industry funding for some of his work. Hilborn responded to the attack, Ray Hilborn Responds to the opportunistic attack of Greenpeace link mentioning that the hit piece (my description) was timed to discredit him as he received the International Fisheries Science Prize at the World Fisheries Congress.

From Hilborn’s response: I would like to thank Greenpeace for offering this opportunity to advertise our research and its results. Greenpeace is unable to attack the science I and my collaborators do; science that threatens their repeated assertions that overfishing is universal and that the oceans are being emptied. On the contrary it is clear that where effective fisheries management is applied, stocks are increasing not declining, and this is true in North American and Europe as well as a number of other places. Overfishing certainly continues to be a problem in the Mediterranean, much of Asia and Africa. The timing of Greenpeace’s attack is not random. In two weeks I will receive the International Fisheries Science Prize at the World Fisheries Congress.

Professor Hilborn is certainly a gracious man.

Timing is everything, and as the news cycle rolls along, and in the past twenty four hours Greenpeace has also attacked the New Zealand fishery management system, based on “research” published as a working paper as part of the Sea Around Us project by the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, University of British Columbia. Anyone familiar with the University of British Columbia knows who has taken root there, Daniel Pauly, the Pew funded flim flam man who said “Our oceans have been the victims of a giant Ponzi scheme, waged with Bernie Madoff–like callousness by the world’s fisheries.”

Some back ground on Daniel Pauly and his funding (not being questioned by Greenpeace) is provided from The Big Green Money Machine – how anti-fishing activists are taking over NOAA, link

Daniel Pauly and his group at the Fisheries Centre of the University of British Columbia are among the foremost proponents of the “blame it all on fishing” brand of eco-doom. Fortunatey, his apocalyptic speculations – one hesitates to call it research – of late has been greeted with such disfavor by the scientific community, or at least that part of it that isn’t funded by the quartet of anti-fishing foundations, that he’s taken to writing for such learned journals as The New Republic. In fact, the above Pauly quote was from an article published in the September 28, 2009 issue of The New Republic titled both cleverly, provocatively and somewhat inaccurately Aquacalypse Now – read the End of Fish Acrockalypse Now – link. I’m anxiously awaiting the fourth in the series.)

The Fisheries Centre at UBC has faired quite well under Dr. Pauly’s headline grabbing leadership, having acquired $17.7 million from Pew link.

One of Dr. Pauly’s most startling pronouncements was that the sediment plumes stirred up by shrimp trawlers. His widely circulated statement was “these images of trawler mudtrails confirm that this mode of fishing is terrible. Think of the story about China’s Great Wall being the only human artefacts (sic) visible from space. Now we can add the mudtrails of trawlers.” Somewhat puzzlingly, he made this statement in 2009, a year in which any of us with a computer, a reasonable internet conection and (free) access to Google Earth could easily view not only the Great Wall of China but also the three skylights on my house, none of which are above 4 feet long or two feet wide. Perhaps the internet hadn’t yet made its way into British Columbia (for more on this singular phenomena I refer you again to Acrockalypse Now linked above. Nils Stolpe, fishnetusa.com

Greenpeace says the Ministry for Primary Industries should come clean about allegations it’s covering up for greedy commercial fishing companies, wasting fish.

A University of Auckland paper has shown commercial fishing companies are grossly under-reporting their catches. It says for every fish recorded as being caught, there’s another fish either being stolen, or dumped.

Greenpeace Executive Director Russel Norman said it’s been going on for decades, and proves large finds of dead fish aren’t isolated incidents.

I was interested in the study mentioned and found this: NZ Fisheries catch under-reported – Expert reaction  http://www.sciencemediacentre.co.nz/2016/05/16/nz-fisheries-catch-under-reported-expert-reaction/

Between 1950 and 2013, 24.7 million tonnes of fish went unreported, compared to the 15.3 million that was officially reported to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, the international research led by the University of Auckland’s Dr Glenn Simmons reports.

The researchers drew on stock reports, peer reviewed studies, unpublished reports and over 300 interviews with industry experts and personnel, to build an estimate of unreported catch.

The majority of unreported fish catch was commercial catch or fish discarded because they were the wrong size or species.

The research was published as a working paper as part of the Sea Around Us project by the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, University of British Columbia.

A media release and copy of the report is available from the ‘Sea Around Us’ website.

Low and behold, its Pew Gold thanks to Daniel Pauly!

The paper is here: http://www.seaaroundus.org/doc/PageContent/OtherWPContent/Simmons+et+al+2016+-+NZ+Catch+Reconstruction+-+May+11.pdf

I’m certain you are aware of it, but was compelled to send it just the same.

New Zealand fishery catch estimated at 2.7 times more than reported: study

http://www.seaaroundus.org/new-zealand-fishery-catch-estimated-at-2-7-times-more-than-reported-study/