Back in July 2012, John Bullard was the newly minted Northeast regional director for the National Marine Fisheries Service. Soon after he took the reins, Bullard anguished over quota cuts of 77 percent for Gulf of Maine cod and 55 percent for Georges Bank cod, deemed necessary to rebuild those failing stocks. Read the rest here 09:41
NILS STOLPE: The New England groundfish debacle (Part IV): Is cutting back harvest really the answer?
While it’s a fact that’s hardly ever acknowledged, the assumption in fisheries management is that if the population of a stock of fish isn’t at some arbitrary level, it’s because of too much fishing. Hence the term “overfished.” Hence the mandated knee jerk reaction of the fisheries managers to not enough fish; cut back on fishing. What of other factors? They don’t count. It’s all about fishing, because fishing is all that the managers can control; it’s their Maslow’s Hammer. When it comes to the oceans it seems as if it’s about all that the industry connected mega-foundations that support the anti-fishing ENGOs with hundreds of millions of dollars a year in “donations” are interested in controlling. Read the article here
