FISHERYNATION.COM

NORTH BEND, Ore. — The Coast Guard is searching for the master of a 32-foot fishing vessel that sank Saturday morning approximately 35 miles offshore Florence.

Missing is Mike Morgan, 68.

Watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector North Bend received a mayday call at approximately 12 a.m. Saturday from Morgan, the master of the white-and-black fishing vessel F/V White Swan III, reporting that his vessel was sinking in the north end of the Heceta Banks fishing area. Morgan reported that a female crew member was also aboard the vessel. The 13th Coast Guard District Command Center received an emergency position indicating radio beacon alert from F/VWhite Swan III.

Upon arrival at the scene of the EPIRB location, an MH-65 Dolphin rescue helicopter crew from Air Facility Newport spotted a debris field and a life raft. The aircrew had to return to base due to heavy fog and low visibility. 

Crews aboard the 87-foot Coast Guard Cutter Orcas, a Sector North Bend MH-65 Dolphin rescue helicopter crew, and a Coast Guard Station Umpqua River 47-foot Motor Lifeboat are currently saturating an approximately 21 square-mile area offshore Florence to locate Morgan.

Involved in the search are:

Sector North Bend;
Air Facility Newport MH-65 Dolphin rescue helicopter crew;
Sector North Bend MH-65 Dolphin rescue helicopter crews;
Coast Guard Station Siuslaw River 47-foot Motor Lifeboat crews;
Coast Guard Station Umpqua River 47-foot Motor Lifeboat crew;
87-foot Coast Guard Cutter Orcas and crew.

Mariners and the public are encouraged to contact the Sector North Bend Command Center at 541-756-9210  if anyone has information in the effort to locate the missing master of F/V White Swan III.

-USCG-

U.S. Coast Guard 13th District PA Detachment Astoria
Contact: Coast Guard PA Detachment Astoria
Office: (206) 251-3237
After Hours: (206) 251-3237
PA Detachment Astoria online newsroom

NOAA OVERSIGHT PROJECT

Introduction

From Dutch Harbor to the Old Harbor Float in Petersburg, from Gloucester and all the way round to Corpus Christi, wherever Americans untied their boats to fish in the decades since the Magnuson Act passed, fishermen had to take on science, politics, and NOAA.

Some of you spent your shore time up to your knees in fish politics dividing the stock or arguing with managers about areas or days at sea.

Because you engaged in politics, new generations of kids setting and hauling gear can still catch fish. Sort of–

Like me, some of you believe that passing down the fishing tradition between generations is a bedrock of American independence and that after 2009 NOAA threatened it.

In 2008 a push for Catch Shares, which began in Alaska’s^[1] halibut fishery in the early 1990s and expanded 20 years latter to 20 percent of all US caught fish, threatened to spread to all ports.

^[1] In Alaska back in 1971, when I started to  learn how to troll and gillnet salmon, hook halibut and black cod, fish stocks were on their way to rock bottom even as the number of boats kept growing. One summer, we were down to fishing 12 hours a week. In 1975, the entire 400 mile long South Eastsalmon season shut down a month early. In 1976, the State limited entry of the number of boats who could fish salmon. In the late 1980s, a Federal program to give each fisherman a share of the halibut quota for the year began to take shape enriching captains at the expense of many crew members.

In early 2009, when the Senate approved Under Secretary Jane Lubchenco (and her right hand woman, Monica Medina, wife of Biden and Gore political operative, Ron Klain), Catch Shares were going to take off like a rocket.

James Balsiger, the acting head of the National Marine Fisheries Service, was going to be replaced by fisherman/ Senate staffer Arne Fuglvog who favored catch shares or scientist Brian Rothschild who did not.

But for Richard Gaines’ corruption busting headlines in the Gloucester Times and fishermen who turned in Fuglvog for illegal fishing, Catch shares would have applied to all fish stocks.

I hope you’ll learn a lot about one facet of how NOAA’s plans got busted. It springs from dozens of FOIAs I made since 2010. When I got stonewalled on getting 13,000 pages related to the Fuglvog investigation, I started a lawsuit in 2015 year that has forced NOAA to cough up out about 7000 pages so far.

Without the guidance and insight of some fishermen, lawyers, a scientist, and policy makers, and others it would have been pretty hard to pull all the pieces together.

For me, the story begins in 2010.

Out of the blue, a candidate for the US Senate in Alaska, who had won his party’s nomination, pulled me out of retirement in California by a phone call. “Help me fight corruption,” he said, “ I want you to be my regional manager.” I asked him if he had the right guy.

A decorated Army Officer and a Yale Law School alum, he was not going to let the old guard continue the corruption that had rocked Alaska.

Because of my ten years on the beach in California, I was out of touch, but he insisted. I took a deep breath and accepted. I never regretted the choice or doubted the character of the man.

I caught a plane up to Juneau where for several days we met with party members and agency heads and then I flew down to a conference in Petersburg to prepare the ground for his arrival. There, old fishing friends updated me on what had been going on in the fleet during my decade ashore.

They told me that Senator Murkowski’s fisheries aide, Arne Fuglvog, should not remain in that position, because he was a fish crook who had been pushing catch shares in 2008-9 before he suddenly withdrew his name to be head of the NMFS.

I was shocked. So were a lot of people in town. I knew and admired this guy’s dad. They claimed Arne had been fishing illegally for a long time for halibut and black cod under the Catch Share program or IFQs. NOAA should have investigated the crimes. But there was nothing public about it.

This was a campaign issue which could not be raised without facts. Details were few and I couldn’t locate crew members. In Juneau the candidate and I had met, at the Ted Stevens NOAA Lab/Monument, with high ranking NOAA officials who never uttered a peep about the investigation (or catch shares). It puzzled me then that NOAA would fly a guy fly up from Seattle to meet with an Alaskan politician, a guy who might scrutinize the money pipeline to NOAA.

Lacking hard evidence of a NOAA investigation, I submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to NOAA on my own behalf on October 21^st.

Just before Christmas, and more than six weeks after the 2010 November election, the mailman delivered NOAA’s Response. This first FOIA resulted in tantalizing clues and dead ends.

NOAA’s Response stonewalled by claiming that they could “neither confirm nor deny” an open investigation, a tactic the government first used to block inquires about Howard Hughes’ Glomar Explorer searching for a sunken Russian Nuclear Submarine.

Five years later, FOIA documents showed the investigation was almost or should have been closed before Christmas 2009, because NOAA knew many months before Christmas that Fuglvog was cooperating (“admitting guilt”) after a Grand Jury convened and his log books and vessel computer seized.

What the Christmas time 2010 NOAA response did prove were fishing violations in 2005. In May of 2005, Fuglvog was a Board Member of the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council.

He exceeded his bi-catch by 100%. He also exceeded his black cod quota. NOAA blanked out the amount of pounds and the fines. (NOAA also withheld nine pages, and redacted dozens more– the good stuff).

I don’t know if Fuglvog revealed these 2005 fisheries violation on his 2006 job application to Senator Lisa Murkowski. The potential fine was $25,000 on one count. Certainly there was a long history of illegal fishing that he should have disclosed. I have yet to find out.

More important than NOAA’s stonewall on the Fuglvog investigation was a blackout in the press. In October 2010, I informed at least three large mainstream news outlets about the Fuglvog rumors. No stories ran. After I got the FOIA Response, I sent evidence to at least one national news outlet. No outlet mentioned the 2005 violations, even though they had documented proof and even though the election for Senator was still contested in the courts.

Disinterest in Fuglvog seemed surreal. I got calls from reporters in Paris and New York wanting to talk to my candidate. Gail Collins even crossed the Hudson to fly into Petersburg to interview and poke fun at my candidate and me. Yet when poop on Fuglvog surfaced, the media closed their collective eyes.

Winter turned to summer.

Then on August 1, 2011, Fuglvog announced a plea deal, agreeing to go to jail and pay about $150,000, copping to only one instance of illegal fishing. The media was all over it. O my gosh when and what did NOAA know. But they had had their heads in the sand refusing to report on evidence.

A few days before Fuglvog appeared in Federal Court, NOAA emailed me that “Records prior to 2005 were destroyed in 2009.” That was not completely true, as I discovered years latter when NOAA released documents referring to more illegal fishing prior to 2005.

There were few times, I have from a reliable source, when he did not fish illegally.

NOAA’s stonewalling and the media black out whetted my curiosity. What corrupt or illegal means did the government use to keep you in the dark about Fuglvog and the push for Catch Shares? Who within NOAA ran the game? How did they manage the controversy?

The picture I’ve assembled so far from the dozens of FOIAs and lawsuit is not yet a complete one. But enough salacious details are now available to give you a peek into the inside story about the Fuglvog scandal.

This is the first in what I hope will be a series of pieces revealing what the heck went wrong inside NOAA under Jane Lubchenco and who outside the agency supported her and Fuglvog.

Alan Stein

————————-

This is the start of a new probe into mysteries arising out of the 2010 Alaska Senate Campaign which, but for the Fuglvog Scandal –an investigation stalled, buried, and botched by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA)—most likely would have ousted Senator Lisa Murkowski.

Arne Fuglvog one year into his job as Fisheries Assistant to Senator Lisa Murkowski. She never fired him even though he admitted to officials in 2009 that he had habitually broke fisheries law. He resigned his job with Murkowski in August, 2011, after striking a plea deal more than two years after a grand jury considered his case in 2009 and three months after she claimed to have first learned of his plea. Picture Credit: Juneau Empire

Keep in Mind These Questions

  • Why did the press –which swarmed into Alaska from Los Angeles, New York, and Europe looking for any nit to pick– ignore a tawdry story about Senator Murkowski’s fisheries aide, Arne  Fuglvog, that would have changed the outcome of the 2010 election?

 • In 2010, why did the media miss digging into widespread rumors about a story that would have made headlines showing why Fuglvog in July, 2009 withdrew his quest to be the   top administrator of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) after pursuing the spot for only three and a half months? (Documents I obtained under the Freedom of Information Act after filing suit against NOAA show, for the first time, that contrary to Fuglvog’s reasons for withdrawing from the race (he claimed the process was taking too long)— he withdrew his quest for the leadership slot in the NMFS immediately after he learned NOAA obtained evidence that could have convicted him on federal offenses; namely, someone turned in his fishing log books showing he had lied repeatedly on official documents submitted to NOAA.)

• Who or what organizations pushed Fuglvog to seek the top NMFS job and how would they benefit if he took the helm?
• Did NOAA botch or cover up 2007 complaints made about Fuglvog’s illegal commercial fishing?
  • In 2011, why, after he publicly admitted to crimes, did NOAA officials stonewall on what and when they knew about his crimes.
  • In 2009 or afterwards, did NOAA exchange information with the White House, Senator Murkowski, or any other member of Congress and if not, why not? If NOAA exchanged information, did the White House, Senator Murkowski, or Congress take appropriate action to expose Fuglvog in 2009 or 2010? If not, why not?

The NOAA Oversight Project will uncover and make public all the issues surrounding the Fuglvog Scandal, Catch Shares, and other national fisheries issues.

Six years after NOAA was forced to pursue Fuglvog, after over a dozen FOIAs to NOAA (many still outstanding) and a law suite filed to compel production, I can start to answer some of these questions.

Before discussing some of the information I’ve obtained under FOIAs from NOAA, I want you to remember that the back story involves the mainstream media asleep at the wheel (or beholden to editors acting as gate keepers who have no appetite to dog a story that could jeopardize a sitting Alaska Senate seat).

This story arises in a federal agency in disarray, subjected to strong manipulation by US Senators and their lackeys within the agency, and so committed to promoting its Catch Shares Program (reducing fleet size as a way to manage fish catches and enrich the big boys) that its golden boy, Fuglvog, escaped outing for federal fisheries crimes he had committed for over half a decade, before and after he was appointed by Frank Murkowski, to sit (as a Board Member of a regional fisheries management council . Starting in 2006 when he became the Senate’s foremost fisheries aide to Lisa Murkoswi, Frank’s daughter, Fuglvog sold the program to policy makers and fishermen around the country.

[Updates

September 11^th, 2015, I posted a small but revealing part of the story—emails recently obtained from NOAA which show how NOAA reacted on August 4^th, 2011, a few days after the US Attorney filed charges against Fuglvog.

September 18th, I added the names of Fuglvog’s supporters who sent letters to NOAA urging his appointment to the top job at the NMFS including the dates in 2009 when they did so.   These details that I am revealing have remained hidden in NOAA’s files, some for six years.

September 18^th, 2015: NOAA released three FOIA Requests I made near the start of the year. These documents were released about six weeks after I filed a lawsuit to get them and other FOIAs are still outstanding].

December 21st, 20015, NOAA released 19 pages concerning Monica Medina. One email shows Monica Medina had a private email account in April 2009 which Fuglvog used to communicate with her about a strategy for getting support for his run for the head of NMFS. Conducting public business on private email accounts we have learned in the cases of Hillary Clinton, Ashton Carter, and other officials is forbidden under federal law. Perhaps I am not getting more communications of Medina because most of them were on her private account and these were not archived by NOAA?

December 21st, 2015 NOAA placed in the US mail 2641 pages of the investigative file on Fuglvog, the second installment since I filed the lawsuit. A month earlier, they released about the same number of pages. More releases are scheduled. Without the lawsuit, I’m guessing it would be Christmas 2020 before I would have gotten this information.

The Rise and Fall of Fuglvog

Background and Connections

In 2009, a clamor for Fuglvog to be prosecuted arose when those who knew of his crimes learned he was a candidate to be the head of the NMFS. Complaints to NOAA’s Office of Law Enforcement (OLE) began in May, 2009, but as well, and significantly, were also made in 2007 when NOAA botched and buried investigations into the 2007 complaints.

The 2009 complaints occurred around the same time that his supporters in the fishing industry and Congress were inundating Jane Lubchenco, the new head of NOAA, with letters of recommendation to make him chief of the NMFS.

Thanks to an April, 2009 email, we now know Fuglvog was seeking a private meeting with Medina who was to coach him, apparently, on whom to solicit letters of support from the industry and Congress. Since Fuglvog wrote to her private email account on AOL, I’m not sure whether NOAA has Medina’s replies to Fuglvog’s repeated requests for help. FOIA allows the person who created the document to decide if it should be archived by NOAA and if it is deleted on a private account, no one is the wiser.

This exchange takes on added significance when we remember that the anti Catch Share choice was a scientist whom the records so far show was not being coached for support by Medina. It adds weight to claims I have heard that Fuglvog was Lubchenco’s choice and Rothschild’s short interview was just window dressing to appease the East Coast horde backing him.

Further evidence of stonewalling is the failure of NOAA to give me Medina’s scheduling calendar showing whom she met and when she met them. Perhaps that too resides on private account or server. In response for Medina’s calendar, NOAA provided Jane Lubcheco’s (without attachments). We shall see.

Obviously, Fuglvog who is not a scientist, was her first choice over the well regarded marine scientist, Professor Brian Rothschild. Many of my sources believe that the EDF, which promoted Lubchenco’s career, was a main force behind the push to make Fuglvog the administrator of our nation’s fish research and resources.

In 2009, NOAA’s Office of Law Enforcement itself was in hot water, thanks to East Coast pressure. Its Director, Dale Jones, would be caught by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) ordering case files destroyed while OIG investigated. NOAA has yet to reveal whether Jones destroyed Fuglvog related criminal files. NOAA could neither confirm nor deny aspects of this. I have learned an Inspector General computer in the Denver Office charged with investigating the Fuglvog affair crashed which may have contained relevant information. Obfuscation can take many forms.

Alaska’s OLE office, it appears, had totally botched 2007 crew complaints against Fuglvog and some would say it covered them up. In late April, 2009

some crew again contacted OLE. Sensing more inaction from OLE , the complainants then contacted the FBI and the Inspector General.

By June, 2009, amazingly, OLE agents in Alaska were zealously conducting interviews concerning Fuglvog. Funny what happens when you go to the FBI. It wasn’t long before a fish log was seized and then the boat’s computer showing GPS positions. NOAA notified Fuglvog, FOIA information reveals, of its investigation on June 24th. Once the evidence was seized, he knew his goose was cooked.

But Fuglvog had discovered the investigation weeks earlier, indicating someone in NOAA may have warned him. NOAA has not yet responded to FOIAs that may clarify this all important issue. I have evidence that will also clarify, but want to see how it fits with NOAA’s ability to answer my request.

After 2009, over two years passed until Fuglvog’s prosecution became public August 1, 2011 and another half year elapsed before he went to jail. Meanwhile, he continued to work on fisheries issues while on Senator Lisa Murkowski’s staff, no news of his crimes leaked in 2010 to affect the tough reelection fight for the Alaska Senate seat, and NOAA escaped scrutiny for not prosecuting him for years after the 2007 complaints were made.

Fuglvog’s Rise to Power

Fuglvog did not get where he was because he was a ladies man or a nice guy—though he was both:

• Fuglvog was room mates with Alaska fisherman Bobby Thorstenson Jr. who supposedly inherited a lot of Icicle Seafood stock from his father, the founder of Icicle Seafoods.
• Fuglvog’s dad held one of the largest blocks of stock in Icicle Seafoods.

Fuglvog got appointed by Lisa Murkowski’s father, the Governor of Alaska, to the North Pacific Management Council (NPFMC) which

• allocates some of Alaska’s billion dollar a year stocks of fish that are not salmon or herring.
• One of his votes on the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council was key to benefiting Icicle and a couple of other mega players in Alaska fisheries.
• Subsequently Icicle, which had been on the block for a long time, sold for about 80 million dollars, according to one of my sources.
• We’ll never know how much his votes raised the value of the company. He never disclosed to NOAA, nor was he required to disclose, his father’s interest in the company.
• His policy for promoting Catch Shares was in line with organizations funded by Sam Walton (the Wall Mart Sam) or Pew Trusts, such as the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Eco Trust, and Sea Web.
• In 2008, EDF funded a seminar for members of the many regional Fishery Management Councils under NOAA by giving several hundred thousand dollars through Stanford University to the Woods Foundation. The latter two refuse to answer questions about the money which paid for Fishery Council Members to attend. A NOAA memo raised the question of whether bribery was involved. (I will examine this issue later).
• At the California event, Fuglvog, by then Murkowski’s fisheries aide, conducted a day long explanation of Catch Shares that was the best attended of all the items on the agenda. Having passed his audition in California with flying colors, Fuglvog got a green light for his next career move—to take over NMFS.
• Lubchenco long favored The Aldo Leopold Leadership Project, while she was a long time EDF trustee, and it received $2.1 million in funding from the Packard Foundation of Palo Alto.

After being confirmed by the Senate, in March, 2009, Lubchenco had to replace the acting leader of NMFS, a Phd scientist named Balsiger who was also Fuglvog’s friend. In April, Fuglvog applied for the job. She favored Fuglvog – who had no scientific background in fish management – over an East Coast fisheries scientist of national stature, Dr Brian Rothschild, according to an inside source.

In May, 2009,Fuglvog was on the brink of claiming the the NMFS prize position. Support peaked in late May just as unfriendly forces were about to dash all his dreams, for as the Bard says, “false hope lingers in extremity.”

 NOAA Stonewalled and Stalled

2007 Cover Up

2009 Political Cover

In 2007, NOAA’s Office of Law Enforcement (OLE) investigated and then dropped, some sources say covered up, several complaints about Fuglvog’s long standing illegal activities, but in 2009 when OLE again stalled a new investigation, the FBI, Inspector General, Congressmen, and finally the White House were contacted. Finally a vigorous investigation began in earnest.

Some political motives for stalling the investigation and stone-walling the release of information about his guilt for two years are obvious, others are obscure. Fuglvog was picked for the NMFS directorship for his skill in advocating for Catch Shares ⎯ an objective he shared with Jane Lubchenco ⎯ and also because it is believed, under Senator Murkowski, he was a player in clearing the way for Shell Oil to drill in the Arctic.

Was NOAA’s stalling and lethargy in pursuing him politically motivated? A partial answer emerges by reviewing the sequence of political support he received during the spring of 2009.

• Fuglvog became a candidate for the NMFS directorship on April 9^th, 2009 (weeks after the Senate confirmed Jane Lubchenco to be head of NOAA on March 19^th). But no sooner did Fuglvog throw his hat in the ring than a former crewman complained to NOAA on April 27 about Fuglvog’s misdeeds as a fishing captain.
• April 9^th, letters of recommendation began pouring in from the EDF Senators, including Murkowski and Murray, and fishing companies

• May 6^th David Benton of the Marine Conservation Alliance wrote a letter recommending Fuglvog addressed to Lubchenco (from # 80022772 Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18^th, 2015 )
• May 8^th Gregg Block, Wild Salmon Center, supported Fuglvog in his letter to Lubchenco (#80022849 Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18^th, 2015 )
• May 8^th, Ben Landry, Omega Protein, wrote Lubchenco to support Fuglvog (#80022954 Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18^th, 2015 )
• May 8^th, Glen Brooks, Gulf Fisherman’s Association wrote Lubchenco to support Fuglvog . (#80022957 Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18^th, 2015 )
• May 11^th, Keith Criddle, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, wrote Lubchenco to support Fuglvog ( # 80023002Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18^th, 2015 )
• May 11^th, Shirley Marquardt, City of Unakleet, Alaska, wrote Lubchenco to support Fuglvog. ( # 80023003 Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18^th, 2015)
• May 18^th, CONGRESSIONAL Recommendations came from
  • Representative Mike Thompson,
  • President Bob Dickinson,
  • Representatives Robert Wittman,
  • Brian Baird,
  • Chairman Don Young,
  • Representative Frank LoBiondo,
  • Co-Chair Representative Sam Farr,
  • • Representative Walter Jones,
    • Representative Jay Inslee,
    • Representative David Wu (NOAA Congressional Correspondence Log #80023162, FOIA released September 18^th, 2009
    • May 18^th,another letter of recommendation for Fuglvog arrived at NOAA signed by
      • Senator Mel Martinez,
      • Senator (Texas) Kay Bailey Hutchison,
      • Chairman Mark Begich,
      • Chair Senator Mary Landrieu,
      • Senator Bill Nelson. ((NOAA Congressional Correspondence Log # 80023163) FOIA released September 18^th, 2009
    • May 19^th, Margaret Williams, World Wildlife Fund, wrote Lubchenco to recommend Fuglvog. ( #80023088 , Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18^th, 2015)
    • May 19^th Ed Backus, EcoTrust,wrote Lubchenco to recommend Fuglvog. ( 80023092 Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18^th, 2015 )
    • May 19^th, Mark Vinsel and Joe Childers, United Fisherman of Alaska, wrote Lubchenco to recommend Fuglvog. ( 80023090 Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18^th, 2015)
    • May, 19^th TJ Tate, Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Shareholders’ Alliance, wrote Lubchenco to recommend Fuglvog. (#80023080, Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18^th, 2015 )
    • May 19^th, Jack Stern Esq., and David Wilmon Ocean Champions wrote Lubchenco to recommend Fuglvog. ( 80023081, Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18^th, 2015)
    • • May 19^th Kathy Hanson, Southeast Alaska Fisherman’s Association, wrote Lubchenco to recommend Fuglvog . ( 80023082, Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18^th, 2015)
      • May 19^th, Don Giles, Icicle Seafoods,wrote Lubchenco to recommend Fuglvog . ( #80023084 Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18^th, 2015)
      • May 19^th, Dorthy Childers, Alaska Marine Conservation Council, wrote Lubchenco to recommend Fuglvog . ( #80023085 Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18^th, 2015)
      • May 22^nd, Dan Castle Southeast Seiners Association,wrote Lubchenco to recommend Fuglvog . (#80022948 Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18^th, 2015)
      • June 2^nd, Chris Zimmer, Rivers without Borders, wrote Lubchenco to recommend Fuglvog . (#80023303 Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18^th, 2015)
      • June 3d, Julianne Curry, Petersburg Vessel Owners Association, wrote Lubchenco to recommend Fuglvog. (80023328 Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18^th, 2015)
      • June 16^th, Representative Dave Reichert, wrote Lubchenco to recommend Fuglvog. ( #80023519 80023328 Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18^th, 2015)
      • July 9^th, maybe the only one in Alaska’s fishing industry who did not now then know Fuglvog was being investigated, Alvin Birch, Alaska Whitefish Trawlers Association, wrote Lubchenco to recommend Fuglvog. (#80023086 Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18^th, 2015)

      Powerful forces at this point were backing Fuglvog for a variety of reasons, not least of which was his ability to sell national fish council members on the Catch Share concept of fish management—kinda like fencing in the range in the 1890s out West— demonstrated the year before at a retreat near Stanford University that was bankrolled by EDF money passed through Stanford. Lubchenco, had been an EDF Board Member for  ten years and a trustee https://www.edf.org/news/environmental-defense-fund-honored-board-vice-chair-reportedly-picked-noaa-administrator

    • https://www.edf.org/people/board-of-trusteesShe has recently won EDF’s prestigious prize for her work on Catch Shares, while heading NOAA. https://www.edf.org/media/dr-jane-lubchenco-wins-tyler-prize-environmental-achievement ).
      • On May 22^nd, Lubchenco announced federal funding of almost $19 million to implement Catch Shares in New England. More importantly, she announced a National Catch Shares Task Force, comprised of many of NOAA’s top brass who, a year and half later, would be controlling information to the press, Congress, and presumably the White House about Fuglvog’s criminal behavior.

       

      • With his “friends” and, we believe, former wife, being interviewed in Alaska by OLE in June and July 2009 and a Grand Jury convened on July 21^st.

       

      • Fuglvog withdrew his name for consideration to be head of the NMFS on the last day of July, the day after he discovered someone had confiscated his vessel fish log. He knew his goose was cooked. So did NOAA.
      • Months later, in December 2009, during his first interview with NOAA, Fuglvog admitted it was “common” practice to make misrepresentations in his log book.
      • Between the July 2009 Grand Jury, when much evidence against Fuglvog was aired, and August, 2011 the public did not know of Fuglog’s guilt— though there were rumors aplenty in Alaska.

      Meanwhile, Fuglvog, though his dream took flight, was scot free for two more years to advocate for Catch Shares, while still an aide to a powerful US Senator. Until of course

      The Fish Hits the Fan

      2011

The following is but a sample of what you can expect to read about the Fuglvog Scandal and how it was integral to the Catch Share push from NOAA. To throw the cold light of truth onto this story, I posted emails from high level managers in NOAA after the Fuglvog story broke which I obtained from NOAA under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) after I had to file suit to get them. (NOAA had 20 days to comply, it took them about eight months to produce. Some of my requests for information have languished for years).
On August 4^th, 2011, Politico’s August 2nd headline read:,

Former Murkowski Aide Arne Fuglvog Admits To Breaking Fishing Laws

Senator Murkowksi being asked about Arne Fuglvog 2011.

Politico failed to ask the obvious question. What did NOAA know and when did they know it? Instead, Politico’s story downgraded the crime, calling it a misdemeanor, even though Fuglvog had agreed to pay $150,000 and go to jail for ten months. At a subsequent hearing, more facts became public. Fuglvog had broken the law multiple times but was being charged with only one instance. Because he was caught red handed, he copped a plea in exchanged for shorter jail time and a smaller fine and agreed to testify

against others. Others had been fined hundreds of thousands of dollars and required forfeiture of million dollar boats.

Politico made no mention of OLE’s Chief who ordered case files shredded, as revealed in a 2010 report by the Office of Inspector General. I have an outstanding FOIA to investigate if Fuglvog’s files were shredded. I was informed that after the Inspector General investigated OLE for this outrageous conduct, the computer containing information relevant to my FOIA request crashed. Sound familiar?

Still, NOAA was getting phone calls from reporters who were curious to know why a misdemeanor deserved a 150 grand fine and they caused NOAA’s upper management to scramble.

It is not yet clear if this apparent born again concern by upper management as reflected in the following emails was a ruse to conceal prior knowledge of the investigations or only decision making on what to release to the press. It is clear DC was controlling the flow of information carefully. Nor is it yet clear which members of the upper management team had knowledge prior to August 4th. I have yet to get a full Response including all of Lubchenco’s emails. I do have a document and sources have confirmed that in June of 2009 she was made aware about allegations against Fuglvog. In a FOIA release, NOAA omitted the red herring email to Lubchenco that I have. It is inconceivable that others on the email list of August 4th were ignorant of Fuglvog’s prior acts.

Here’s the sequence of events that followed the filing of charges against Fuglvog:

• On August 1^st, 2011, the US Attorney in Anchorage filed charges against Fuglvog and entered his plea deal into the record.

August 2nd, Senator Murkowski issued a news release announcing his guilt and his resignation from her staff. It was the talk of Washington and fishing communities which were shocked, simply shocked–except those who knew all along.

August 4^th, back at NOAA headquarters where all the facts were becoming known or well known, frenzied exchanges occurred between alarmed

• officials, keeping Lubchenco out of the loop, which utterly belies the “misdemeanor” story-line Politico was pushing.
• August 5^th, Murkowski announced though her Press Secretary, that she knew in late June of the plea deal. She knew he faced some violation, she claimed, back in December, 2010 ⎯ right after her reelection. (We are researching to discover if the delay in Fuglvog’s firing qualified him for a pension from the Senate.)

 

The cast of Lubchenco’s top NOAA management team on August 4th, engaged in media containment included the following:

 

• Monica Medina, Principal Deputy Undersecretary for Oceans and Atmosphere of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration She led the Catch Share Task Force that Lubchenco announced in May and appointed in June 2009. Her husband, Ron Klaine, was the Ebola Czar, who led the recount effort in Florida for Al Gore. He’s closely connected to the White House through Joe Biden.

       •  Lois J. Schiffer, NOAA General Counsel

       •   Margaret Spring, Chief of Staff, who is now with the Monterey Bay Aquarium near Palo Alto.

        •   John Oliver Deputy Assistant Administrator for Operations, NOAA’s Fisheries Service. He is also the Executive Director of the NPFMC He was a member of the Catch Share Task Force. He found the Office of Law Enforcement’s Dale Jones was blameless in 2006 even though an Inspector Generals Report four years latter found the head of OLE shredded case files for four hours while under investigation by the IG. NOAA has not yet turned over documents showing if Jones shred Fuglvog’s case file  http://www.savingseafood.org/news/enforcement/nmfs-dep-admn-john-oliver-and-ex-admn-hogarth-knew-of-ole-complaints-four-years-ago/

• John Gray, Director of Legislative Affairs

 

• Samuel Rauch, Fisheries Acting Assistant Administrator, now head, was the author of a 2010 policy paper distributed to all the national fisheries councils called, “NOAA’s Catch Share Policy under Development” (2010)calling for 15 fisheries limited by 2011 and 31 in coming years. http://www.fisherycouncils.org/SSCpapers/Catchshares abstract.pdf He administered national fisheries management councils and Fuglvog had sat on the NPFMC. He is a key player in catch shares within the agency. He was a member of the Catch Share Task Force

 

 

• Alan Risenhoover, Office of Sustainable Fisheries, was the author of a 2010 policy paper distributed to all the national fisheries councils called, “NOAA’s Catch Share Policy under Development” (2010), calling for 15 fisheries to be limited by 2011 and 31 more in coming years. http://www.fisherycouncils.org/SSCpapers/Catchshares abstract.pdf He administered national fisheries management councils and Fuglvog had sat on the NPFMC. He is a key player in catch shares within the agency. He was a member of the Catch Share Task Force

 

• Justin Kenney Director, NOAA Office of Communications & External Affairs. He was an ex officio member of the Catch Share Task Force
• Amanda Hallberg Office of Legislative Affairs and former Congressional Staffer

 

On August 4^th, 2011 between noon and 4:30, a string of emails went out between the individuals on the above list under the subject head:

CONFIDENTIAL FUGLVOG CASE.

The flow initially— from the limited records I obtained so far— went to John Oliver, a much over looked play maker, to Monica Medina, Lubchenco’s right hand gal whose husband was a key Biden and Gore player.

It is not clear if the first email was sent by Risenhoover prior to 12:08, since the content of that message was not provided to me and the sender is deleted, but the 12:08 email appears to have been sent to John Oliver who managed the day to day of NOAA. Oliver appears to have gotten “info” from Risenhoover. Note that the account Oliver is sending to Medina is blanked out. Was it to her private or NOAA account? Oliver’s NOAA account is provided

 

Twenty minutes after Oliver got the “info,” Medina forwarded “very sensitive” materials to the following:

• Schiffer, the General Council
• Samuel Rauch, Fisheries Acting Assistant Administrator
• Justin Kenney, Director of NOAA’s Office of Communications & External Affairs.
• Amanda Hallberg, Office of Legislative Affairs and former Congressional Staffer
• Justin Kenney, Director of NOAA’s Office of Communications & External Affairs

See the 2:23PM email below:

By about an hour and a half later, it became clear the information sent was “confidential,” because Rausch told the legislative affairs officer Halberg and the others it was so:

What was the confidential information? Why would someone in fisheries be the one to determine political and legal information was confidential? Note everyone was now using Medina’s NOAA account.

NOAA’s FOIA Response did not include any of the “info” alluded to, several years after Fuglvog got of jail. NOAA may or may not provide it in the coming weeks. So who is NOAA protecting in 2015 by so far withholding this “info” and will a judge order them to release it? The facts suggest NOAA is stonewalling to protect itself from the prying eyes of the pesky public.

Did the “info” include the results of the criminal investigation or did the Management Team already know about that? Did the details inform them when and to what extent the agency knew Fuglvog was committing crimes say back to 2002? Did the “info” include facts showing Murkowski knew about Fuglvog long before she said she did? Did the White House know and do nothing? Was the 2009 email to Lubcheco about Fuglvog part of the “info” packet? Did other people in Congress know? All inferences can be drawn from a stonewalling agency.

While that exchange about “info” obtained about Fuglvog from John Oliver or the NPFMC was taking place, another exchange was occurring about him between Lubchenco’s Chief of Staff and Lois Schiffer, the General Counsel. But the instruction goes far beyond the letters of recommendation for Fuglvog from US Senators et. al. that are on file. The following emails reflect the team’s “info” was everything NOAA knew about Fuglvog.

The Counsel General of NOAA herself, Schiffer, recommended stonewalling about what NOAA knew.

Ms. Schiffer’s instruction to the publicity officer, Kinney, and the Chief of Staff, Spring, is most disturbing. Schiffer wrote that when talking to the press:

 

“I WOULDN’T ANSWER QUESTIONS ABOUT WHAT WE KNEW OR DIDN’T KNOW [ABOUT FUGLVOG’S ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES]”.

(Email Schiffer to Spring et al 3:36PM EST):

After five years of effort using FOIA and the courts, NOAA has still not revealed all of what it knew or didn’t know and when it knew it. For if it did know Fuglvog was cheating between 2007 (when complaints were made to OLE) and 2011 when news broke of the prosecution, it was going to look like NOAA had held back information that could have changed the course of the 2010 election for Senator in Alaska as well as added weight to the criticism Congress was making that OLE needed major reforms. Why would Lubchneco welcome that kind of news? Why would the White House be happy that its new appointee was in deep muck soon after Senate confirmation?

 

Burying a National Story

If NOAA had informed the public about the investigations it conducted on Fuglvog up through 2009—as I had requested before the 2010 vote—-instead of waiting until January of the next year), the outcome for Alaska’s US Senate Race almost certainly would have been different that year.

For between July, 2009 and November, 2010, NOAA was sitting on enough evidence to throw the book at this aide to Senator Murkowski, including evidence presented to the 2009 Grand Jury and his own 2009 admission, for which he would later serve time in federal jail.

This is but a sampling of what you can expect to read about the inside story about Fuglvog Scandal and how it was integral to the catch share push from NOAA, a story essentially and potentially affecting tens of thousands of lives in fishing communities around the country ⎯ and the 2010 Senatorial campaign in Alaska.

It is a complicated story, one that any one of the national outlets could have explored had their budgets not been slashed, their reporters demoralized, and their editors cowered, as Sharyl Attkisson has recently shown in Stone Walled (2014).

Instead, except for a few right wing web sites, and one thorough story by Libby Casey ion Alaska Public Radio, the story got buried. A few reporters had their FOIAs delayed or incompletely answered and then they were on to hotter topics. After all, Mitch McConnell’s gal won the Senate Race.

Unless the lame stream press latches on to this story, I hope to unwind more of this story as NOAA, excruciatingl slow, produces more information requested under the FOIAs and the Federal Court System. Stay tuned.

This material is copyrighted @ 2015 by Alan Stein. None of it may be reproduced in any form, in or on any platform or publication without permission which can be obtained by contacting this web site.

P.S. Up date 12/27/15 NOAA has still not released all of the 13,000 pages of the investigative files I requested years ago and to which I am entitled to under the FOIA. Five months after the lawsuit was filed in 2015, I now have about 5,000 pages. The quest for documents continues.

 

 

 

 

 

From Dutch Harbor to the Old Habor Float in Petersburg, from Gloucester and all the way round to Corpus Christi, wherever Americans untied their boats to fish in the decades since the Magnuson Act passed, fishemen had to take on science, politics, and NOAA. Some of you spent your shore time up to your knees in fish politics dividing the stock or arguing with managers about areas or days at sea. Because you engaged in politics, new generations of kids setting and hauling gear can still catch fish.

Sort of– Like me, some of you believe that passing down the fishing tradition between generations is a bedrock of American independence and that after 2009 NOAA threatened it. In 2008 a push for Catch Shares, which began in Alaska’s1 halibut fishery in the early 1990s and expanded 20 years latter to 20 percent of all US caught fish, threatened to spread to all ports. In early 2009, when the Senate approved Under Secretary Jane Lubchecno (and her right hand woman, Monica Medina, wife of Biden and Gore political operative, Ron Klain), Catch Shares were going to take off like a rocket.

In Alaska back in 1971, when I started to learn how to troll and gillnet salmon, hook halibut and black cod, fish stocks were on their way to rock bottom even as the number of boats kept growing. One summer, we were down to fishing 12 hours a week. In 1975, the entire 400 mile long Southeast salmon season shut down a month early. In 1976, the State limited entry of the number of boats who could fish salmon. In the late 1980s, a Federal program to give each fisherman a share of the halibut quota for the year began to take shape enriching captains at the expense of many crew members.

Picture Credit: Juneau Empire 2007
• Why did the press –which swarmed into Alaska from Los Angeles, New York, and Europe looking for any nit to pick– ignore a tawdry story about Senator Murkowski’s fisheries aide, Arne Fuglvog, that would have changed the outcome of the 2010 election.
• In 2010, why did the media miss digging into widespread rumors  about a story that would have made headlines showing why  Fuglvog in July, 2009  withdrew his quest to be the top administrator of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) after pursuing the spot for only three and a half  months?  (Documents I obtained under the Freedom of Information Act after filing suit against NOAA show, for the first time, that contrary to Fuglvog’s reasons for withdrawing from the race (he claimed the process was taking too long)— he withdrew his quest for the leadership slot in the NMFS immediately after he learned NOAA obtained evidence that could have convicted him on federal offenses; namely, someone turned in his fishing log books showing he had lied repeatedly on official documents submitted to NOAA.)

Who or what organizations  pushed Fuglvog to seek the top NMFS job and how would they benefit if he took the helm?

Did NOAA botch or cover up  2007 complaints made about Fuglvog’s illegal commercial  fishing?

In 2011, why, after he publicly admitted to crimes,  did NOAA officials  stonewall on what and when they knew about his crimes.

In 2009  or afterwards, did NOAA exchange information with the White House, Senator Murkowski, or any other member of Congress and if not, why not? If NOAA exchanged information, did the White House, Senator Murkowski, or Congress take appropriate action to expose Fuglvog in 2009 or 2010? If not, why not?

The NOAA Oversight Project has and will uncover and  make public all the issues surrounding the Fuglvog Scandal, Catch Shares, and other national fisheries issues.

Six  years after NOAA was forced to pursue Fuglvog, after over a dozen FOIAs to NOAA (many still outstanding) and a law suite filed to compel production, I can start to answer some of these questions. You can come to this link on Tongass Low Down to find newly released information from NOAA or information a court orders NOAA to produce.

Before discussing the information I’ve obtained under FOIA from NOAA after long periods of time have passed, I want you to remember that the larger story involves the mainstream media was asleep at the wheel (or beholden to editors acting as gate keepers who have no appetite to dog a story that could jeopardize a sitting Alaska Senate seat).

This story arises in a federal agency in  disarray, subjected to  strong manipulation by US Senators and their lackeys within the agency, and so committed to promoting its Catch Shares Program (reducing fleet size as a way to manage fish catches and enrich the big boys) that its golden boy, Fuglvog, escaped prosecution for federal fisheries crimes he had committed for almost a decade. In the meantime, sold the program to policy makers and fishermen around the country.

On September 11th, 2015, I  posted a small but revealing part of the story— emails recently obtained from NOAA which show what NOAA did on August 4th, 2011, a few days after the US Attorney filed charges against Fuglvog.

Today on September 18th I am  adding the names of  Fuglvog’s supporters who sent  letters to the agency urging his appointment to the top job at the NMFS including the dates in 2009 when they did so.   These details that I am revealing have remained hidden in NOAA’s files, some for six years.
[Update September 18th, 2015. Today, NOAA released three FOIA Requests  I made near the start of the year. Documents were released about six weeks after I filed a lawsuit to get them and other FOIAs are still outstanding].

Background and Connections

In 2009, a clamor for Fuglvog to be prosecuted arose from among those who knew of his crimes and did not want him to be the head of the NMFS. Complaints to NOAA’s Office of Law Enforcement (OLE) began in May, 2009, but as well, and significantly, were also made  in 2007 when NOAA botched and buried investigations into the 2007 complaints. The 2009 complaints occurred around the same time that his supporters in the fishing industry and Congress were inundating  Jane Lubchenco, the new head of NOAA, with letters of recommendation to make him chief of the NMFS.

It is likely, Fuglvog who had no scientific background, was her first choice over a well regarded marine scientist, Professor Brian Rothschild. Many of my sources believe that the EDF which promoted Lubchenco’s career was a main force behind the push to make Fuglvog the administrator of our nation’s fishery research and resources.

In 2009, OLE itself was in hot water. Its Director, Dale Jones, would be caught by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) ordering  case files destroyed  while OIG investigated OLE. OLE, it appears, had totally botched the 2007 complaints against Fuglvog and some would say it covered them up. Two years latter n 2009 and sensing more inaction from OLE, the complainants contacted the FBI and the Inspector General.
By June, 2009 OLE agents in Alaska were conducting interviews concerning Fuglvog.

But over two years passed after 2009 before Fuglvog’s  prosecution became public and another half year elapsed before he went to jail. Meanwhile, he continued to work on fisheries issues while on Senator Lisa Murkowski’s staff, no news of his crimes leaked in 2010 to affect the tough reelection fight for the Alaska Senate seat, and NOAA escaped scrutiny for not prosecuting him for  years after the 2007 complaints were made.

Fuglvog did not get where he was because he was a ladies man or a nice guy— though he was both:
• Fuglvog was room mates with Alaska fisherman Bobby Thorstenson Jr. who supposedly inherited a lot of Icicle Seafood stock from his father, the founder of Icicle Seafoods.
• Fuglvog’s dad  held one of the largest blocks of stock in Icicle Seafoods.
• Fuglvog got appointed by Lisa Murkowski’s father, the Governor of Alaska,  to the North Pacific Management Council (NPFMC) which allocates  some of Alaska’s billion dollar a year stocks of  fish that are not salmon or herring.
• One of his votes on the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council was key to benefiting Icicle and a couple of other mega players in Alaska fisheries.
• Subsequently Icicle, which had been on the block for a long time, sold for about 80 million dollars, according to one of my sources.
• We’ll never know how much his votes raised the value of the company. He never disclosed to NOAA, nor was he required to disclose, his father’s interest in the company.
• His policy for promoting Catch Shares was in line with organizations funded by Sam Walton (the Wall Mart Sam) or Pew Trusts, such as the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Eco Trust, and Sea • In 2008, EDF funded a seminar for members of the many regional Fishery Management Councils under NOAA by giving several hundred thousand dollars through Stanford University to the Woods Foundation. The latter two refuse to answer questions about the money which paid for Fishery Council Members to attend. A NOAA memo raised the question of whether bribery was involved. (I will examine this issue later).
• At the California event, Fuglvog, by then  Murkowski’s fisheries aide, conducted a day long explanation of Catch Shares that was the best attended of all the items on the agenda. Having passed his audition in California with flying colors, Fuglvog got a green light for his next career move—to take over NMFS.
• Lubchenco long favored The Aldo Leopold Leadership Project, while she was a long time EDF trustee, and it received $2.1 million in funding from the Packard Foundation of Palo Alto.
• After being confirmed by the Senate, in March, 2009, Lubchenco had to select a new leader for the NMFS. In April, Fuglvog applied for the job. She favored Fuglvog – who had no scientific background in fish management –  over an East Coast fisheries scientist of national stature, Dr Brian Rothschild, according to an inside source.

In May, 2009,Fuglvog  was on the brink of claiming the the NMFS prize position. Support peaked in late May just as  unfriendly forces were about to dash all his dreams, for as the Bard says, “false hope lingers in extremity.”

NOAA Stonewalled and Stalled 2007 Cover Up 2009 Political Cover

In 2007, NOAA’s Office of Law Enforcement (OLE) investigated and then dropped, some sources say covered up, several complaints about Fuglvog’s long standing illegal activities, but in 2009 when OLE again stalled a new investigation, the FBI, Inspector General, Congressmen, and finally the White House were contacted. Finally a vigorous investigation began in earnest.

Some political motives for stalling the investigation and stone-walling the release of information about his guilt for two years are obvious, others are obscure. Fuglvog was picked for the NMFS directorship for his skill in advocating for Catch Shares ⎯ an objective he shared with Jane Lubchenco ⎯ and also because, under Senator Murkowski,  he was a player in clearing the way for Shell Oil to drill in the Arctic.

Was NOAA’s stalling and lethargy in pursuing him politically motivated? A partial answer emerges by reviewing the sequence of political support he received during the spring of 2009.

• Fuglvog became a candidate for the NMFS directorship on April 9th, 2009 (weeks after the Senate confirmed Jane Lubchenco to be head of NOAA on March 19th). But no sooner did Fuglvog throw his hat in the ring than a former crewman complained to NOAA on April 27  about Fuglvog’s misdeeds as a fishing captain.

• April 9th,  letters of recommendation began pouring in from the EDF Senators, including Murkowski and Murray, and fishing companies

• May 6th David Benton of the Marine Conservation Alliance wrote a letter recommending Fuglvog addressed to Lubchenco (from # 80022772 Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18th, 2015 )

• May 8th Gregg Block, Wild Salmon Center, supported Fuglvog in his letter to Lubchenco (#80022849 Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18th, 2015 )

• May 8th, Ben Landry, Omega Protein, wrote Lubchenco to support Fuglvog  (#80022954 Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18th, 2015 )

• May 8th, Glen Brooks, Gulf Fisherman’s Association  wrote Lubchenco to support Fuglvog . (#80022957 Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18th, 2015 )

• May 11th,  Keith Criddle, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, wrote Lubchenco to support Fuglvog ( # 80023002Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18th, 2015 )

• May 11th, Shirley Marquardt, City of Unakleet, Alaska, wrote Lubchenco to support Fuglvog. ( # 80023003 Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18th, 2015)

• May 18th,  CONGRESSIONAL Recommendations came from

▪ Representative Mike Thompson,

▪ President Bob Dickinson,

▪ Representatives Robert Wittman,

▪ Brian Baird,

▪ Chairman Don Young,

▪ Representative Frank LoBiondo,

▪ Co-Chair Representative Sam Farr,

▪ Representative Walter Jones,

▪ Representative Jay Inslee,

▪ Representative David Wu

(NOAA Congressional Correspondence Log #80023162, FOIA released September 18th, 2009

• May 18th,another letter of recommendation for Fuglvog arrived at NOAA signed by

▪ Senator Mel Martinez,

▪ Senator (Texas) Kay Bailey Hutchison,

▪ Chairman Mark Begich,

▪ Chair Senator Mary Landrieu,

▪ Senator Bill Nelson. (NOAA Congressional Correspondence Log # 80023163) FOIA released September 18th, 2009

• May 19th, Margaret Williams, World Wildlife Fund, wrote Lubchenco to recommend  Fuglvog. ( #80023088 , Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18th, 2015)

• May 19th Ed Backus, EcoTrust,wrote Lubchenco to recommend  Fuglvog. ( 80023092 Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18th, 2015 ) Page 7

• May 19th, Mark Vinsel and Joe Childers, United Fisherman of Alaska, wrote Lubchenco to recommend  Fuglvog. ( 80023090 Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18th, 2015)

• May, 19th TJ Tate, Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Shareholders’ Alliance, wrote Lubchenco to recommend  Fuglvog.  (#80023080, Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18th, 2015 )

• May 19th, Jack Stern Esq., and David Wilmon Ocean Champions  wrote Lubchenco to recommend  Fuglvog. ( 80023081, Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18th, 2015)

• May 19th Kathy Hanson, Southeast Alaska Fisherman’s Association, wrote Lubchenco to recommend  Fuglvog . ( 80023082, Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18th, 2015)

• May 19th, Don Giles, Icicle Seafoods,wrote Lubchenco to recommend  Fuglvog . ( #80023084 Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18th, 2015)

• May 19th, Dorthy Childers, Alaska Marine Conservation Council, wrote Lubchenco to recommend  Fuglvog . ( #80023085 Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18th, 2015)

• May 22nd, Dan Castle Southeast Seiners Association,wrote Lubchenco to recommend Fuglvog .  (#80022948 Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18th, 2015)

• June 2nd, Chris Zimmer, Rivers without Borders, wrote Lubchenco to recommend Fuglvog . (#80023303 Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18th, 2015)

• June 3d, Julianne Curry, Petersburg Vessel Owners Association, wrote Lubchenco to recommend Fuglvog.  (80023328 Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18th, 2015)

• June 16th, Representative Dave Reichert, wrote Lubchenco to recommend Fuglvog. ( #80023519 80023328 Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18th, 2015)

• July 9th, maybe the only one in Alaska’s fishing industry who did not now then know Fuglvog was being investigated, Alvin Birch, Alaska

Whitefish Trawlers Association, wrote Lubchenco to recommend  Fuglvog.  (#80023086 Lubchenco Correspondence Log FOIA release September 18th, 2015)

• Powerful forces at this point were backing Fuglvog for a variety of reasons, not least of which was  his  ability to sell national fish council members on the Catch Share concept of fish management— kinda like fencing in the range in the 1890s out West— demonstrated the year before at a retreat near Stanford University that was paid for with EDF money. Lubchenco, had been an EDF Board Member for ten years and a trustee https://www.edf.org/ news/environmental-defense-fund-honored-board-vice-chairreportedly-picked-noaa-administrator  https://www.edf.org/people/board-of-trustees

She has recently won EDF’s prestigious prize for her work on Catch Shares, while heading NOAA. https://www.edf.org/media/dr-janelubchenco-wins-tyler-prize-environmental-achievement ).

• On May 22nd, Lubchenco announced federal funding of almost $19 million to implement Catch Shares in New England. More importantly, she announced a National Catch Shares Task Force, comprised of many of NOAA’s top brass who, a year and half later, would be controlling information to the  press, Congress, and presumably the White House about Fuglvog’s criminal behavior.

• With his “friends” and, we believe, former wife, being interviewed in Alaska by OLE in June and July 2009 and a Grand Jury convened on July 21st.

• Fuglvog withdrew his name for consideration to be head of the NMFS on the last day of July, the day after he discovered someone had confiscated his vessel fish log. He knew his goose was cooked. So did NOAA.

• Months later, in December  2009, during his first interview with NOAA, Fuglvog admitted it was “common” practice to make misrepresentations in his log book.

• Between the July 2009 Grand Jury, when much evidence against Fuglvog was aired, and August, 2011 the public did not know of Fuglog’s guilt— though there were rumors aplenty in Alaska. Meanwhile, Fuglvog, though his dream took flight,  was scot free for two more years to advocate for Catch Shares, while still an aide to a powerful US Senator. Until of course…

The Fish Hits the Fan 2011

The following is but a sample of what you can expect to read about the Fuglvog Scandal and how it was integral to the Catch Share push from NOAA. To throw the cold light of truth onto this story, I  posted emails from high level managers in NOAA after the Fuglvog story broke which I obtained from NOAA under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) after I had to file suit to get them.  (NOAA had 20 days to comply, it took them about eight months to produce. Some of my requests for information have languished for years).

On August 4th, 2011, Politico’s August 2nd headline read:,  Former Murkowski Aide Arne Fuglvog Admits To Breaking Fishing Laws

The following is but a sample of what you can expect to read about the Fuglvog Scandal and how it was integral to the Catch Share push from NOAA. To throw the cold light of truth onto this story, I  posted emails from high level managers in NOAA after the Fuglvog story broke which I obtained from NOAA under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) after I had to file suit to get them.  (NOAA had 20 days to comply, it took them about eight months to produce. Some of my requests for information have languished for years).

On August 4th, 2011, Politico’s August 2nd headline read:,

Former Murkowski Aide Arne Fuglvog Admits To Breaking Fishing Laws !

Politico failed to ask the obvious question. What did NOAA know and when did they know it? Instead, Politico’s story downgraded the crime, calling it a misdemeanor, even though Fuglvog had agreed to pay $150,000 and go to jail for ten months. At a subsequent hearing, more facts became public. Fuglvog had broken the law multiple times but was being charged with only one instance. Because he was caught red handed, he copped a plea in exchanged for shorter jail time and a smaller fine and agreed to testify against others. Others had been fined hundreds of thousands of dollars and required forfeiture of million dollar boats.
Politico made no mention of OLE’s Chief who ordered case files shredded, as revealed in a 2010 report by the Office of Inspector General. I have an outstanding FOIA to investigate if Fuglvog’s files were shredded. I was informed that after the Inspector General investigated OLE for this outrageous conduct, the computer containing information relevant to my FOIA request crashed. Sound familiar?
Still, NOAA was getting phone calls from reporters who were curious to know why a misdemeanor deserved a 150 grand fine and they caused NOAA’s upper management to scramble.
It is not yet clear if this apparent born again concern by upper management as reflected in the following emails was a ruse to conceal prior knowledge of the investigations or only decision making on what to release to the press. It is clear DC was controlling the flow of information carefully. Nor is it yet clear which members of the upper management team had  knowledge prior to August 4th. I have yet to get a full Response including all Lubchenco’s emails. I do have a document and sources have confirmed that in June of 2009 she was made aware about  allegations against Fuglvog. It is inconceivable that others on the email list of August 4th were ignorant of Fuglvog’s prior acts.

Here’s the  sequence of events that followed the filing of charges against Fuglvog:

• On August 1st, 2011, the US Attorney in Anchorage filed charges against Fuglvog and entered his plea deal into the record.

• August 2nd, Senator Murkowski issued a news release announcing his guilt and his resignation from her staff. It was the talk of Washington and fishing communities which were shocked, simply shocked–except those who knew all along.

• August 4th, back at NOAA headquarters where all the facts were becoming known ( some facts were not already known by Lubchenco), frenzied exchanges that occurred between alarmed officials, keeping Lubchenco out of the loop,, belie the “misdemeanor” story-line Politico was pushing.

Politico failed to ask the obvious question. What did NOAA know and when did they know it? Instead, Politico’s story downgraded the crime, calling it a misdemeanor, even though Fuglvog had agreed to pay $150,000 and go to jail for ten months. At a subsequent hearing, more facts became public. Fuglvog had broken the law multiple times but was being charged with only one instance.

Because he was caught red handed, he copped a plea in exchanged for shorter jail time and a smaller fine and agreed to testify against others. Others had been fined hundreds of thousands of dollars and required forfeiture of million dollar boats.

Politico made no mention of OLE’s Chief who ordered case files shredded, as revealed in a 2010 report by the Office of Inspector General. I have an outstanding FOIA to investigate if Fuglvog’s files were shredded. I was informed that after the Inspector General investigated OLE for this outrageous conduct, the computer containing information relevant to my FOIA request crashed. Sound familiar?

Still, NOAA was getting phone calls from reporters who were curious to know why a misdemeanor deserved a 150 grand fine and they caused NOAA’s upper management to scramble.

It is not yet clear if this apparent born again concern by upper management as reflected in the following emails was a ruse to conceal prior knowledge of the investigations or only decision making on what to release to the press. It is clear DC was controlling the flow of information carefully. Nor is it yet clear which members of the upper management team had  knowledge prior to August 4th. I have yet to get a full Response including all Lubchenco’s emails. I do have a document and sources have confirmed that in June of 2009 she was made aware about  allegations against Fuglvog. It is inconceivable that others on the email list of August 4th were ignorant of Fuglvog’s prior acts.

Here’s the  sequence of events that followed the filing of charges against Fuglvog:

• On August 1st, 2011, the US Attorney in Anchorage filed charges against Fuglvog and entered his plea deal into the record.

• August 2nd, Senator Murkowski issued a news release announcing his guilt and his resignation from her staff. It was the talk of Washington and fishing communities which were shocked, simply shocked–except those who knew all along.

• August 4th, back at NOAA headquarters where all the facts were becoming known ( some facts were not already known by Lubchenco), frenzied exchanges that occurred between alarmed officials, keeping Lubchenco out of the loop,, belie the “misdemeanor” story-line Politico was pushing.

• August 5th, Murkowski announced though her Press Secretary, that she knew in late June of the plea deal. She knew he faced some violation, she claimed, back in December, 2010 ⎯ right after  her reelection. (We are researching to discover if the delay in Fuglvog’s firing qualified him for a pension from the Senate.)

The cast of Lubchenco’s top NOAA management team on August 4th, engaged in media containment included the following:

• Monica Medina, Principal Deputy Undersecretary for Oceans and Atmosphere of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration She led the Catch Share Task Force that Lubchenco announced in May and appointed in June 2009.   Her husband, Ron Klaine, was the Ebola Czar, who led the recount effort in Florida for Al Gore. He’s closely connected to the White House through Joe Biden.

• Lois J. Schiffer, NOAA General Counsel

• Margaret Spring, Chief of Staff, who is now with the Monterey Bay Aquarium near Palo Alto.

• John Oliver Deputy Assistant Administrator for Operations, NOAA’s Fisheries Service. He is also the Executive Director of the NPFMC He was a member of the Catch Share Task Force. He found the Office of Law Enforcement’s Dale Jones was blameless in 2006 even though an Inspector Generals Report four years latter found the head of OLE shredded case files for four hours while under investigation by the IG. NOAA has not yet turned over documents showing if Jones shred Fuglvog’s case files http://www.savingseafood.org/news/enforcement/nmfs-dep-admn-john-oliver-and-ex-admnhogarth-knew-of-ole-complaints-four-years-ago/

• John Gray, Director of Legislative Affairs

• Samuel Rauch, Fisheries Acting Assistant Administrator, now head. was the author of a 2010 policy paper distributed to all the      national fisheries councils called, “NOAA’s Catch Share Policy under Development” (2010)calling for 15 fisheries limited by 2011 and 31 in coming years. http://www.fisherycouncils.org/SSCpapers/ Catchshares abstract.pdf He administered national fisheries management councils and Fuglvog had sat on the NPFMC. He is a key player in catch shares within the agency. He was a member of the Catch Share Task Force

• Alan Risenhoover, Office of Sustainable Fisheries, was the author of a 2010 policy paper distributed to all the national fisheries councils called, “NOAA’s Catch Share Policy under Development” (2010), calling for 15 fisheries to be limited by 2011 and 31 more in coming years. http:// www.fisherycouncils.org/SSCpapers/Catchshares abstract.pdf He administered national fisheries management councils and Fuglvog had sat on the NPFMC. He is a key player in catch shares within the agency. He was a member of the Catch Share Task Force

• Justin Kenney Director, NOAA Office of Communications & External Affairs. He was an ex officio member of the Catch Share Task Force • Amanda Hallberg Office of Legislative Affairs and former Congressional Staffer

On August 4th, 2011 between noon and 4:30, a string of emails went out between the individuals on the above list under the subject head: CONFIDENTIAL FUGLVOG CASE.
The flow initially— from the limited records I obtained so far— went to John Oliver, a much over looked play maker, to Monica Medina, Lubchenco’s right hand gal whose husband was a key Biden and Gore player.
It is not clear if the first email was sent by Risenhoover prior to 12:08, since the content of that message was not provided to me and the sender is deleted, but the 12:08 email appears to have been sent to John Oliver who managed the day to day of NOAA. Oliver appears to have gotten “info” from Risenhoover.

Twenty minutes after Oliver got the “info,” Medina forwarded “very sensitive” materials to the following: • Schiffer, the General Council • Samuel Rauch, Fisheries Acting Assistant Administrator • Justin Kenney, Director of NOAA’s Office of Communications & External Affairs. • Amanda Hallberg, Office of Legislative Affairs and former Congressional Staffer • Justin Kenney, Director of NOAA’s Office of Communications & External Affairs
See the 2:23PM email below:

By about an hour and a half later, it became clear the information sent was “confidential,” because Rausch told the legislative affairs officer Halberg and the others it was so:

What was the confidential information? Why would someone in fisheries be the one to determine political and legal information was confidential?
NOAA’s FOIA Response did not include any of the “info” alluded to, several years after Fuglvog got of jail. NOAA may or may not provide it in the coming weeks. So who is NOAA protecting in 2015 by so far withholding this “info” and will a judge order them to release it? The facts suggest NOAA is stonewalling to protect itself from the prying eyes of the pesky public.

Did the “info” include the results of the criminal investigation or did the Management Team already know about that? Did the details inform them when and to what extent the agency knew Fuglvog was committing crimes say back to 2002? Did the “info” include facts showing Murkowski knew about Fuglvog long before she said she did? Did the White House know and do nothing? Was the 2009 email to Lubcheco about Fuglvog part of the “info” packet? Did other people in Congress know? All inferences can be drawn from a stonewalling agency.

While that exchange about “info” obtained about Fuglvog from John Oliver or the NPFMC was taking place, another exchange was occurring about him between Lubchenco’s Chief of Staff and Lois Schiffer, the General Counsel.

But the instruction goes far beyond the letters of recommendation for Fuglvog from US Senators et. al. that are on file. The following emails reflect the team’s “info” was everything  NOAA knew about Fuglvog.

The Counsel General of NOAA herself, Schiffer,  recommended stonewalling about what NOAA knew.

Ms. Schiffer’s instruction to the publicity officer, Kinney, and the Chief of Staff, Spring,  is most disturbing. Schiffer wrote that when talking to the press:

“I  WOULDN’T ANSWER QUESTIONS ABOUT WHAT WE KNEW OR DIDN’T KNOW [ABOUT FUGLVOG’S ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES]”.
(Email Schiffer to Spring et al 3:36PM EST):

After five years of effort using FOIA and the courts, NOAA has still not revealed all of what it knew or didn’t know and when it knew it. For if it did know Fuglvog was cheating between 2007 (when complaints were made to OLE) and 2011 when news broke of the prosecution, it was going to look like NOAA had held back information that could have changed the course of the 2010 election for

Senator in Alaska as well as added weight to the criticism Congress was making that OLE needed major reforms. Why would Lubchneco welcome that kind of news? Why would the White House be happy that its new appointee was in deep muck soon after Senate confirmation.

Burying a National Story

If NOAA had informed the public about the investigations it conducted on Fuglvog up through 2009—as I had requested before the 2010 vote—instead of dealing until  until January of the next year), the outcome for Alaska’s US Senate Race almost certainly would have been different that year.

For between July, 2009 and November, 2010, NOAA was sitting on enough evidence to throw the book at this aide to Senator Murkowski, including evidence presented to the 2009 Grand Jury and his own 2009 admission, for which he would later serve time in federal jail.

This is but a sampling of what you can expect to read about the Fuglvog Scandal and how it was integral to the catch share push from NOAA, a story essentially and potentially affecting tens of thousands of lives in fishing communities around the country ⎯ and the 2010 Senatorial campaign in Alaska.

It is a complicated story, one that any one of the national outlets could have explored had their budgets not been slashed, their reporters demoralised, and their editors cowered, as Sharyl Attkisson has recently shown in Stone Walled (2014).

Instead, except for a few right wing web sites, and one thorough story by Libby Casey in Alaska,  the story got buried. A few reporters had their FOIAs delayed or incompletely answered and then they were on to hotter topics. After all, Mitch McConnell’s gal won the Senate Race.
Page 18

Absent a vigilant press, I hope to unwind more of this story if NOAA produces more information requested under the FOIA and the Federal Court System. Stay tuned.
This material is copyrighted @ 2015 by Alan Stein. None of it may be reproduced in any form, in or on any platform or publication without permission which can be obtained by contacting this web site.

P.S. NOAA has still not released over 13,000 pages of the investigative files I requested years ago and to which I am entitled to under the FOIA. NOAA has turned over some interviews of witnesses, a few of which will be published for the first time on these pages.

By David Lincoln

INTRODUCTION

This is the story of how a handful of scientists set out from Oregon with an unshakable belief that they knew what was best for the rest of us. They ended up conquering the world (or at least the watery portions of it) and got rich along the way, while the fishermen and their families only worked harder and got poorer. When their scientific dogma connected with nearly unlimited resources, the earth quaked and the resulting tidal wave swept aside all the usual checks and balances. It carried along the media, the politicians, the government agencies and the non-governmental organizations with such force that seemingly no one could stand against the tide.

The purpose of this investigation is threefold:

To trace the evolution of Ocean Management principles.
To begin to track the interaction of these few experts who were responsible for shaping and popularizing these concepts.
To follow the spread of money, power and influence which made these Ocean Management strategies virtually inevitable.

Such an ambitious undertaking would not have been possible were it not for the fact that these few dynamic individuals served as magnets to attract attention to their cause and incredible wealth to whatever projects they controlled at a given time. They did this by ensuring that their theories were the only alternatives seriously considered as US policy was formulated and inexorably implemented.

The problem is that the Pew money machine provided a seemingly endless supply of cash and those who drank from this fountain of wealth became empowered to turn their every wish into reality. They became so adept at revving up the media engine that the science became secondary to their ability to spread their frantic message in ever widening circles.

Ultimately the Pew engine was positioned so far in front of the boat that all ocean science became tainted by Pew science and the best available science was constrained by the only available science. The mantra that “the oceans would soon be running out of fish” reverberated so often that Pew science only needed to fund those programs which were in search of the next great marine crisis to make their agenda the law of the land (and Sea).

With so much money being pumped through the Pew system, other sources of funding either dried up or were overwhelmed by the shear force of the Pew Ocean’s agenda. Over time, it no longer became necessary for anyone to read the policy papers that Pew directly or indirectly funded. Once you knew the title and saw the first paragraph, you would know which slice of the supposedly ever-shrinking pie you were being served on a silver platter.

The review that follows is only a partial overview of these experts’ activities and works with emphasis on those which had the most impact on fisheries management. It is hoped that by documenting the journey of these people, both conceptually and on the map, that some will rethink the pattern of influence which has brought us to this point. Then we can begin to seriously reconsider the alternative pathways both for past management decisions and future policy deliberations.

FISHERIES MANAGEMENT CONNECTIONS – Getting Their Feet Wet

By the late 1980’s to early 1990’s all three marine scientists had become active in fisheries management. The Pew Charitable Trusts under the new Executive Director, Rebecca Rimel, became the second largest private foundation in America based on total giving. This was the around the time that Joshua Reichert, a sociologist with no marine science background, joined the Pew Charitable Trusts to administer the new “Pew Scholars Program in Conservation and the Environment” and the National Environmental Trust was established.

In 1986, Dr Ellen Pikitch was an Associate Professor at Oregon State University where she was working on a project for NOAA to define Catch Quotas.

In 1988, Pikitch et al published “An evaluation of the effectiveness of trip limits as a management tool.” And the following year she served on the Pacific Fishery Management Council, Scientific and Statistical Committee. Lubchenco was elected Vice-President (later President) of the Ecological Society of America.

In 1990, Rosenberg returned to Massachusetts and accepted the position of Chief of Research Coordination, at the National Marine Fisheries Service Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole. A few years later, he became Research Specialist in Population Dynamics, Office of the Senior Scientist for NMFS in Silver Spring, Maryland, where he served until 1994.

Meanwhile, Jane Lubchenco was beginning her career in Ecosystem Management. Between 1977 and 1990 she published eighteen papers (often together with her husband Bruce Menge) dealing broadly with intertidal community interaction in the US coastal zones. Then in 1991, she began focusing on the sustainable biosphere and an ecological research agenda.

Pikitch published “Technological interactions in the U.S. West Coast groundfish fishery and their implications for management”. This was the same year that Carl Safina was awarded a Pew Fellowship for $150,000 to research and write the book “Song for the Blue Ocean.” Rosenberg et al published “Stock rebuilding strategies over different time scales.”

A year later, Lubchenco was awarded a Pew Fellowship for $150,000, part of which she used to set up the Aldo Leopold Fellowship Program, initially known as SpringGreen. Her program evolved from annual Pew Fellows meetings and was designed by Lubchenco to provide training for academic environmental scientists who wished to be more effective in outreach to the media and policy makers.

Rosenberg et al published “Fisheries risk assessment: sources of uncertainty.”

At this time, Robert H. Campbell took over as CEO of Sunoco, a position he held until he retired in 2000 after 40 years of loyal company service. He moved immediately to the Board of the Pew Charitable Trusts and is currently their Chairman.

In 1993, Lubchenco won the prestigious MacArthur “genius” award for $500,000, part of which she used to set up the Aldo Leopold Foundation while she was Director of the World Resources Institute. She and others also published “Priorities for an Environmental Science Agenda in the Clinton- Gore Administration” and “Pacific Ocean Ecosystems and Global Climate Change.”

Meanwhile, Pikitch chaired the Groundfish Subcommittee for the Pacific Fishery Management Council

Rosenberg et al published “Achieving sustainable use of renewable resources,” “Choosing a management strategy for stock rebuilding when control is uncertain”. “Fisheries: opportunities and concerns,” “Marine fisheries at a critical juncture?” and single-handedly he wrote “Defining overfishing – defining stock rebuilding.”

In 1994, Andy Rosenberg took over as Division Chief, Northeast Region, National Marine Fisheries Service and the following year he was named Northeast Regional Administrator, National Marine Fisheries Service NOAA in Gloucester Mass., a position he held until 1998. Here he served as the senior federal official for regional activities from Canada to Cape Hatteras. Part of his duties doing this period was to act as the Agency spokesperson to the public, Congress and internationally. He was the government’s chief negotiator for recovery plans for New England and Mid-Atlantic fishery resources and he was responsible for oversight of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center.

CANADIAN CONNECTIONS – Spreading the Wave

Ironically, this was a period of great cooperation with universities in Canada. In his first year on the job, Rosenberg co-authored with Ransom Myers and others at Dalhousie Univ. (his old college) “In search of thresholds for recruitment overfishing”. Rosenberg et al published “Uncertainty and risk evaluation in stock assessment advice for U. S. marine fisheries”

In 1994, Lubchenco put forward her principles of “The Scientific Basis of Ecosystem Management.” and the Pew Scholars program shifted to recognizing fellows “which expanded the scope of the program beyond the academic science sphere to include individuals from the non-profit, government and private sectors.” It was also the year that the Univ. of British Columbia (UBC) established their Fisheries Science Centre (FSC) whose staff included Dr. Daniel Pauly.

According to the FSC website, “Pauly is a French citizen who completed his high school and university studies in Germany; his doctorate (1979) and habilitation (1985) are in Fisheries Biology, from the University of Kiel.” Dr. Pauly has authored or co-authored over 500 [over 400 since 1994] scientific articles, book chapters and shorter contributions, and authored, or (co-)edited about 30 books and reports.” The Fisheries Science Centre annual reports indicate that, since it was established, The Pew Charitable Trusts have provided more than $15 million in external research funds to the Fisheries Science Centre at UBC.

In 1995, Pikitch served on the National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council, Committee on Ecosystem Management and Sustainable Marine Fisheries for a three year term. Lubchenco was elected to be President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and later their Chairman of the Board. Meanwhile Rosenberg and Myers published “Population dynamics of exploited fish stocks at low population levels” in Science.

In 1996, Lubchenco was named by Bill Clinton to the National Science Board and that year she was also named a Pew Fellow nominator (she participated in the Pew Fellows advisory Committee and was a Pew Fellows nominator until 1998). This was the year that Pew created Seaweb through a $2 million grant to the NRDC for improved Public Relations and Communications.

In that year, Beth Babcock was a fisheries doctoral student working as a summer intern for the NMFS Northwest group. She was working on a bioeconomic model of the trawl fishery and how landing limits influence target species for fishermen. Dr. Ellen Pikitch was Babcock’s major professor at the University of Washington and she was working with Dan Erickson at Oregon State University. Later, Dr. Pikitch and her partner Dr. Babcock went on to write dozens of fisheries papers together as they moved from one Pew position to another.

It was at this time that J. Howard Pew II took over as Chairman of the Pew Charitable Trusts. He was an innovator who pushed for more advocacy and emphasized depth rather than breath in giving. Pew Conservation grants for general environmental issues were refocused on marine conservation and later named the Pew Fellows Program in Marine Conservation.

NEW ENGLAND CONNECTIONS – Testing the Waters

Within a year, that Pew Fellows program was relocated to the New England Marine Aquarium (NEAQ) in Boston and the “total of $1.5 million presented annually made the fellowships the world’s largest award for marine conservationists.” Jerry Schubel, NEAQ Pres directed the $500,000 in annual administrative fees while Gregory Stone (NEAQ Conservation Director) was an early recipient of a $150,000 grant under the new program. Since that time, the Pew Fellows Program in Marine Conservation has awarded over 130 grants totaling more than $20 million.

Pikitch chaired the NEAQ, Aquatic Forum Series, on “Establishing an agenda for responsible fishing,” and joined the Ocean Wildlife Campaign coalition as their lead stock assessment scientist for four years.  Rosenberg et al publish “Assessing uncertainty and risk in exploited marine populations,” and “Precautionary management reference points and management strategies.” Rosenberg, somewhat hypocritically, published “Shielding fisheries from politics.”

In 1997, Pikitch served on the New England Fishery Management Council, Overfishing definition review panel and by the following year she began a two year role as the Chairman of their Scientific and Statistical Committee. At the same time Pikitch et al published “An overview of trends in fisheries, fisheries science and management in Global Trends: Fisheries Management which she co-edited
Lubchenco began serving a three year stint on the National Marine Fisheries Service, Ecosystem Principles Advisory Panel and during the same timeframe was on the Scientific Advisory Board of the PBS Radio Show “Living on Earth.” She also published “Revelation and the Environment AD 95- 1995.”

In 1998, Lubchenco published “Entering the century of the environment: A new social contract for science” and with others published “Marine reserves are necessary but not sufficient for marine conservation.” She also initiated the Aldo Leopold Leadership Program and it was eventually relocated to Stanford Univ.
According to the website, the program consists of two weeks of communications and media training.

The first weeklong session focuses on leadership development and broad communications and outreach skills. Media representatives and communication specialists conduct “hands on” training, including mock interviews, writing for different audiences, and development of specific messages. The second session, focusing primarily on interaction with policy makers, industry and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), is held in Washington, D.C. The week includes modules on interacting with state and federal agencies, international environmental policy, and working with Congress. This week features a mock Congressional hearing where Fellows practice giving testimony concerning environmental legislation.”

Pikitch et al published “Individual transferable quotas, community based fisheries management systems and “virtual communities,” Meanwhile Rosenberg published “Controlling marine fisheries 50 years from now” and Lubchenco et al. published “No-take reserves: Protection for fishery populations and marine ecosystems.”

In 1999, Lubchenco began the Communication Partnership for Science and the Sea (COMPASS) a consortium of academic scientists, SeaWeb, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium who work together to communicate marine conservation science to policy makers and the public. She also began a 10 year leadership role as Lead Principle Investigator of 13 Co-PIs for the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO). According to her resume:  “With $48 million in grants from the Packard and Moore Foundations, and an additional $30 million in leveraged and complementary funds, this consortium of four universities (OSU, Stanford, UC Santa Barbara and UC Santa Cruz) is revolutionizing our understanding of the nearshore marine ecosystems along the coasts of Oregon and California (1999-2009) with fundamental advances in science.”

Oceana was formed reportedly by contributions from five charitable trusts-the Oak Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Turner Foundation, the Surdna Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trust, but Pew provided the largest share of funds.

That year, the Pew Charitable Trusts awarded $146 million in total grants to 448 organizations which was more than they had given out in the previous 25 yrs. Pew launched the Sea Around Us Project under the Fisheries Science Centre at the Univ. of British Columbia under the leadership of Daniel Pauly. External Research funding for the Fisheries Centre increased about 2 mill/yr from 1.5 mill/yr to roughly 3.5 mill yr at that time and it continued to rise until 2007. Pew also expanded the Pew Fellows Program in Marine Conservation program to “include individuals working in the arts, communication, film, media and journalism in order to support public outreach and education about the oceans.”

At the New England Aquarium, Jerry Schubel along with consultants published a White paper entitled “Potential Environmental Consequences Of Petroleum Exploration And Development On Georges Bank” This paper was issued just as the Canadian government was considering an extension of a moratorium on Georges Bank. The Aquarium concluded that there was not enough information available to make a recommendation. This was followed by a paper by Schubel on Georges Bank Moratorium policy assessment and later on the “Role of Environmental Scientists in Public Policy – A Lesson from Georges Bank.”

The turn of the millennium was a particularly active period for Pew. The Pew Oceans Commission was created which included Jane Lubchenco as the most distinguished marine scientist. The commission initially also included Christine Whitman and Robert H. Campbell, the Chairman and CEO of Sun Oil Co, who became a board member of the Pew Charitable Trusts and is currently the Chairman of the Board for Pew, Hershey Company and a Director of Cigna Corp and Vical Inc.

In 2000, Dr. Ellen Pikitch became a Pew Fellow together with Dr. Amanda Vincent and others. Pikitch provided the SEFSC with a method of estimating the surplus production model from the Catch per Unit Effort. Babcock and Pikitch published “A dynamic programming model of fishing strategy choice in a multispecies trawl fishery with trip limits,” in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries an Aquatic Sciences.

Also in Canada, the Fisheries Economics Research Unit was funded at UBC (primarily by Pew) under the direction of economist Rashid Sumaila. In that year alone, Pew awarded $236 million in total grants worldwide.

Shortly thereafter, the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy was formed championed by Andy Rosenberg. He along with others published “The precautionary approach  and risk management: can they increase the probability of successes in fishery management?” and “Ecosystem approaches to fishery management through essential fish habitat.” Lubchenco published “A New Social Contract for Science.”

Rosenberg joined the faculty of the University of New Hampshire where he remains as Professor of Natural Resources. He served as Dean of the College of Life Sciences and Agriculture for four years.

In 2001, the Ransom Myers Lab was opened at Dalhousie. Myers was joined by Boris Worm, a marine biologist and Assistant Professor in Marine Conservation Biology at Dalhousie University shortly after he completed his doctorate in Biological Oceanography from the University of Kiel, Germany. This coincidentally, is the same German university where Pauly completed his doctorate. Since that time, more than 100 articles have been published by Myers and also Worm at the Myers Lab.

Pew funded Oceana initially at more than $5 mill/yr and by the end of the year Pew had contributed $9.5 million. It is interesting to note when Pew was having such an impact on the development of U.S. Oceans policy the official history of the Pew Charitable Trusts “Sustaining the Legacy” published at this time doesn’t even mention the Oceans. The only reference to fishing is ironically the old adage about “teaching a hungry man to fish instead of merely giving him a fish”

At the same time Pikitch, Babcock et al published “Using Bayesian Methods And Decision Analysis As A Rational Basis To Dealing With Conflicting Stock Assessment Results While Providing Management Advice On Stock Rebuilding.” And later,”Using Bayesian Methods To Improve Stock Assessment and Management of Stock Rebuilding When There Is Uncertainty In Processes Affecting Future Recruitment” and finally “Evaluating The Relative Merits Of Alternative Methods To Weight Different Time Series Of Abundance Indices In Stock Assessment”

In 2002, Pikitch and Babcock released their “Critique of the NMFS report, “Relative Precision of discard rate estimates for the Northeast groundfish complex,” Additionally Pikitch testified in Federal Court in Boston on a lawsuit brought against NMFS and the Secretary of Commerce by the Conservation Law Foundation in an effort to toughen groundfish regulations. Dr. Pikitch declared that “No credible scientist could rule out the possibility that irreparable harm (in the sense of a severe and prolonged population collapse) might occur in a situation where populations are brought to, and kept at, extremely low levels.” This is a loaded statement because as NMFS pointed out “there is some finite risk that all populations will eventually go extinct. At issue, is the magnitude of the risk over a specified period of time.”

Pikitch meanwhile publishes a “Scientific Response to the CITES Justification for setting the 2002 Total Allowable Catch of Beluga Sturgeon (Huso huso) in the Caspian Sea,” for Caviar Emptor, her favorite crusade for saving sturgeon from the caviar addicted wealthy Eurasians. Project Seahorse, a biodiversity and marine trade study was brought to the UBC Fisheries Centre under the direction of Dr. Amanda Vincent, a Pew Fellow in 2000.

Rosenberg publishes “The precautionary approach from a manager’s perspective.”

Oceana débuted their new video “Empty Oceans, Empty Nets” with much fanfare at the United Nations. Pikitch introduced the showing and Lubchenco was prominently featured in the film. This video was broadcast on over 200 PBS television stations to well over 1.5 million households around Earth Day as part of a larger series on Marine Fisheries and Aquaculture and it is still regularly screened at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Calif.

FLORIDA CONNECTIONS – Up to Their Necks

In 2003, Marine Policy issues took a dramatic turn with the publication of the now famous letter by Myers and Worm titled “Rapid worldwide depletion of predatory fish communities” which appeared in the journal Nature and “Predator Diversity Hotspots In The Blue Ocean” in PNAS This was a carefully orchestrated media release of a highly controversial theory which claimed that 90 % of the large fish were gone since the advent of industrial fishing. This theory drew strong criticism including more than 30 critical responses from the marine scientific community most of which dealt with the fallacy of projecting biomass from catch per unit effort (CPUE) in a single fishery.

At the bottom of the page was the statement “This research was part of a larger project on pelagic longlining supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts.” Pew, of course, claimed that the work had been peer-reviewed, but in fact most of the reviewers had a conflict of interest due to their financial relationships with Pew. By this time, Pew was awarding grants totaling $180 million/yr from 3.8 billion in assets and more than 300 non-profit organizations were receiving funds from the Pew Charitable Trusts.

In May 2003 the New England Aquarium and Pew released the Ocean Fisheries Action Statement signed by 50 renowned marine scientists calling for the immediate end to overfishing. However, since most of the signatories were Pew fellows, the statement was not seen as unbiased.

This was the year that Andy Rosenberg published “Managing to the margins: the overexploitation of fisheries,” “Multiple uses of marine ecosystems” and he joined the UBC Fisheries Science Centre Intl Board of Advisors, a position which he has held to the current time. In June, Rosenberg went on tour to discuss the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy findings including an interview with NPR’s Living on Earth Radio Show. He, Ransom Myers and others all remarked on the similarities of the two commissions recommendations. Then, in July, the Pew Oceans Commission released its report “America’s Living Ocean: Charting a course for Sea Change”

Lubchenco presented testimony to the Pacific Fisheries Management Council, on the science of marine reserves. Lubchenco et al published “Ecological criteria for evaluating candidate sites for marine reserve” and “Application of ecological criteria in selecting marine reserves and developing reserve networks,” along with at least four other papers on marine reserves.

By the end of the year, The Pew Fellows Program in Marine Conservation abruptly leaves the New England Aquarium and becomes a program of The Pew Institute for Ocean Science (PIOS) in partnership with The Pew Charitable Trusts and the University of Miami Rosenstiel School for Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS). According to their website

The Rosenstiel School is one of the world’s foremost institutions for research on coral reefs, aquaculture techniques, and commercially important fisheries. It runs the Center on Sustainable Fisheries and works closely with two neighboring institutions: NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory and the Southeast Fisheries Science Center.

It is also where NOAA houses their Center for Independent Experts and in fact all of these institutions are located within a few hundred yards of each other.

Dr. Ellen Pikitch, who by then was the Director of the Pew Fellows Program and Pew Institute of Ocean Science (PIOS) at RSMAS in Florida, together with Babcock, released a report with Oceana titled, “How Much Observer Coverage Is Enough to Adequately Estimate Bycatch?” In this report they argue that 20% coverage is enough for common species, but at least 50% is required for rare species. Pikitch also presented Environmental Sustainability, Ocean Issues, and the Millennium Development Goals.”

In February 2004, Rosenberg Lubchenco, Panetta and others held a joint press conference to announce the formation of the Joint Oceans Commission Initiative to carry out the recommendations of the two earlier commissions and to be directed jointly by none other than Rosenberg and Lubchenco.

In April 2004, the U.S Oceans Commission released their much anticipated report “An Ocean Blueprint for the 21st Century,” One of the recommendations was somewhat of a surprise.

“The commission report suggests an ocean trust fund much like the Highway Trust Fund administered by the Department of Transportation. The fund would come from money from leases for offshore activities, such as oil and gas exploration and recovery. Rosenberg says that future permitted activities, such as bioprospecting, wind farms and aquaculture, could join the list as they develop.”

This was a recommendation that the oil companies had long lobbied for because it ultimately ties coastal state revenues to offshore development activities and gives the states a vested interest in removing obstacles to leasing which could accelerate permit approvals.

The Pew Charitable Trust re-organized as a public charity. At the same time, they funded the Lenfest Oceans Program which was begun by Pew with $80 million in assets and $30 million in grants per year. Lenfest began awarding grants to the Canadian Science centers and nearly $400,000 of that money went to programs run by scientists at Dalhousie (including Myers & Worm)

Rosenberg became the Senior V.P. of Marine Resources Assessment Group (MRAG) which was given a contract from Lenfest to assess US fisheries recoveries plans initially supported at about $200,000. Rosenberg later became the President of MRAG Americas.

In 2005 Lightening struck twice for Myers and Worm, helped along by a little media magic from Seaweb. They published a paper in Science, called “Global Patterns of Predator Diversity in the Open Oceans.” Using data from long line fishing vessels again, they pointed to overfishing and climate change as the cause for up to a 50 per cent decline in biodiversity. According to a news interview of Worm:

“To get that message repeated throughout the world, Dr. Worm and Dr. Myers partnered with SeaWeb, a non-profit organization that uses strategic communications techniques to advance ocean conservation, located in Washington D.C. Upon learning of Worm and Myers´ newest paper, SeaWeb began working with them to promote the paper and its message in the media.

Dr. Worm says the key to working with media is preparation, to make it easy for journalists to get the story. “Most of the coverage we received, the reporters never actually talked to us, because the press release was sufficient. In two-and-a-half pages, all the information was there, and we provided interview clips.”

To produce this professional “on-air” interview, the researchers approached Findlay Muir, a videographer with the Centre for Teaching and Learning. They also scouted locations for a video shoot, selecting Chebucto Head as the appropriate backdrop. An interviewer with SeaWeb posed questions remotely from Washington, with both researchers responding and elaborating on their work while Muir did the camerawork. As soon the journal’s publication embargo had passed, SeaWeb distributed the interview material by satellite to its media contacts worldwide. The coverage benefited from having a visual aspect – the story was picked up internationally, by over 90 TV stations.”

In 2005, Rosenberg completed a report for Oceana called “Bycatch in U.S. fisheries, a National Analysis”. During that year Oceana listed annual revenue and support at more than $14 million

Lubchenco and others presented a “Scientific Consensus Statement on Marine Ecosystem-Based Management.” The Consensus was signed by 217 academic scientists with relevant expertise and published in COMPASS. In addition, Carl Safina, A Rosenberg, R Myers, and others published “U.S. Ocean Fish Recovery: Staying the Course” in Science and Rosenberg et al published “Implementing ecosystem-based approaches to management for the conservation of ecosystem services.” and “Combining control measures for more effective management of fisheries under uncertainty; quotas, effort limitation and protected areas.” Pikitch, Babcock et al Published “A perspective on the use of spatialized indicators for ecosystem-based fishery management through spatial zoning” and added “Marine Reserve Design and Evaluation Using Automated Acoustic Telemetry.”

In 2006, the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative Task force (including Rosenberg and Lubchenco) released its report, “From Sea to Shining Sea: Priorities for Ocean Policy Reform,” presented as a national ocean policy action plan for Congress. Included in the recommendations were plans to strengthen NOAA and “Establish an Ocean Trust Fund in the U.S. Treasury as a dedicated source of funds for improved management and understanding of ocean and coastal resources by the federal and state governments.” Also, “securing additional funding to support management, science, and education programs that are the foundation of robust national ocean policy.” Reportedly, the Joint Initiative has identified $750 million in funding priorities that would be used for research, management and education programs. They have been issuing report cards annually grading progress on achieving their goals.

MRAG also released its report “Rebuilding U.S. Fisheries: A Summary of New Scientific Analysis:” by Rosenberg AA, Swasey JH, (both of MRAG) and co-authored by Bowman M., Director of the Lenfest Oceans Program who funded the study. According to the report, “The Program was established in July 2004 by the Lenfest Foundation and is managed by the Pew Charitable Trusts.”

An MRAG second phase report “A Review Of Rebuilding Plans For Overfished Stocks In The United States.” by John Wiedenmann, MRAG Americas, and Dr. Marc Mangel, of the University of California, Santa Cruz which went even further in recommending an end to overfishing and it too was “initiated and supported by the Lenfest Oceans Program.”
Rosenberg et al published “Resolving mismatches in U.S. ocean governance.”

“Designing marine protected areas for migrating fish stocks”, “Regional Governance and Ecosystem-Based Management of Ocean and Coastal Resources: can we get there from here?” and “Rebuilding US fisheries: progress and problems.” While at the same time he was co-PI for “The development of a public private partnership for advancing ocean policy in Massachusetts,” funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and was simultaneously working on a grant for “Comparative Analysis of Ecosystem-based Management Initiatives Around the World” funded by the Packard Foundation.

Worm et al published the highly controversial “Impacts of Biodiversity Loss on Ocean Ecosystem Services,” in which they claimed that “This [loss of biodiversity]trend is of serious concern because it projects the global collapse of all taxa currently fished by the mid-21st century (based on the extrapolation of regression in Fig. 3A to 100% in the year 2048). This outrageous claim has been repeated literally thousands of times and a Google search of “fish 2048” now yields over 1 million retrievals.

This was also the year that Congress reauthorized the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act under heavy pressure from NGO’s to set catch limits and end overfishing at all costs. Lubchenco published “Can marine reserves or other forms of no-fishing zones help us solve problems facing the oceans today?” Pikitch et al contributed a letter in Ecology Letters called “Global estimates of shark catches using trade records from commercial markets”-
Pikitch also presented the report on Environmental Sustainability of the Ocean recommendations to the United Nations (after serving on the Task Force for two years.). Although the presentation was part of the Millennium Project commissioned by the UN Secretary General and supported by the UNDP, the Pew Logo and maps by Pauly and others from the Sea Around US Project at UBC were prominently displayed.

Task Force Recommendations
• Implement ecosystem-based fishery management
• Eliminate destructive fishing practices
• Establish network of marine protected areas
• Restore depleted fish populations

They demanded that “Global fisheries authorities must agree to eliminate bottom trawling on the high seas by 2006 to protect seamounts and other ecologically sensitive habitats”
This was the year that Robert H Campbell (Pew Chairman of the Board) received over a half million in annual compensation and stock options as a Director of Cigna Corp.

In 2007, The Worm lab transitioned from the Myers Lab. Upon the death of Ransom Myers, Worm became head of the Worm Lab at Dalhousie.

Robert H Campbell (Pew Chairman of the Board) received nearly $700,000 in annual compensation and stock options as a Director of Cigna Corp.

Over at UBC, Pew support for the Fisheries Science Centre exceeded $15 mill with most of those funds coming after the Sea Around Us Project was initiated.

This was the last year that Andy Rosenberg served on the FSC International Advisory Council having completed a 6 year term begun in 2001. Lenfest funded “Setting Annual Catch Limits for U.S. Fisheries” a largely MRAG study in which Rosenberg et al codified how the Regional Fisheries Councils would comply with the re-authorized Magnusun Act. Rosenberg et al also published “Four ways to take the policy plunge: How should researchers best interact with policy-makers for maximum benefit to society?”  Babcock and Pikitch et al published “Comparison of harvest control policies for rebuilding overfished populations within a fixed rebuilding time frame.”

NEW YORK CONNECTIONS – Riding the Wave

In 2008, The Pew Institute of Ocean Science abruptly terminated its contracts with RSMAS in Florida and relocated to SUNY in Stony Brook, New York. Pikitch followed them to SUNY and published the report “Forage Fish: From Ecosystems to Markets” She conveniently chairs the Lenfest Forage Fish Task Force. She and Babcock et al published “New frameworks for reconciling conservation with fisheries: incorporating uncertainty and ecosystem processes into fisheries management.”

Lubchenco et al. published “Resilience, robustness and marine ecosystem-based management.”

This was the year that Pauly resigned from UBC and Rashid Sumaila of the Fisheries Economics Research Unit, was named acting Director of Fisheries.

R. Anderson Pew was forced to retire from the Board of Directors SUNOCO due to his age, but he received more than $1million in deferred compensation. He was a Director since 1978 (30 years).

In 2009, The Joint Oceans Commission Initiative (including Lubchenco and Rosenberg) released a report “Changing Oceans, Changing World Ocean Priorities for The Obama Administration and Congress”

Ted Danson (the founder of Oceana) narrated and promoted the film “End of the Line'” which was selected for the Sundance Festival and then released to hundreds of theaters in the US and the UK. The trailer says that it is “the world’s first major documentary about the devastating effect of overfishing and “Scientists predict that if we continue fishing as we are now, we will see the end of most seafood by 2048.” The press packet states that it is “supported by numerous groups, including Greenpeace and Oceana.”

Lubchenco was appointed to be Undersecretary of Commerce and Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration, the head of NOAA, perhaps the most powerful position impacting ocean policy in the world. She will lead a $4 billion agency with nearly 13,000 employees stationed all over the U.S. and around the world. Rosenberg campaigned for her appointment and was her most vocal supporter when President Obama nominated her.

Worm, Rosenberg, et al published “Rebuilding Global Fisheries” in which Worm stated that he never meant for his 2048 doomsday date for the oceans to be taken literally. They got there 1 million hits on Google literally by accident?

Sumaila and others at Environmental Working Group (EWG) published “US Fisheries Subsidies,” in which they claimed that direct subsidies and financial support of U.S fisheries exceeded $700 million/yr. Shortly thereafter, Sumaila was named the Director of Fisheries Science Centre at UBC.

According to Pikitch’s resume  “During the past several years I have appeared on TV programs including CNN, CNBC, NBC News, Discovery News, EXTRA, and Wild about Animals, given numerous radio interviews and have been quoted in thousands of newspaper articles. My outreach activities have included Op-Ed’s and articles in newspapers, magazines, scientific journals, books, and technical reports.”

Rosenberg is positioned in MRAG to take advantage of NOAA’s requirement for observer coverage paid for by the fishing fleets under the system of Catch Shares which he helped to formulate. According to Rosenberg’s resume he has several works with others in press including “Two views: marine ecosystem-based management” and “Managing for cumulative impacts in ecosystem-based management through ocean zoning.” He lists Lubchenco as a professional reference

In 2009, the Pew Board consists of Robert H. Campbell, and 9 Pew heirs out of 14 Board members including R. Anderson Pew. The Pews have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to influence ocean management policies. Recently Pew announced that they were consolidating their operations in Washington D.C. in a single building with at least 300 people. Still, they plan to keep most of the operations and personnel they have in Philadelphia. Shouldn’t we be asking what is next on their agenda?

INTRODUCTION

This is the story of how a handful of scientists set out from Oregon with an unshakable belief that they knew what was best for the rest of us. They ended up conquering the world (or at least the watery portions of it) and got rich along the way, while the fishermen and their families only worked harder and got poorer. When their scientific dogma connected with nearly unlimited resources, the earth quaked and the resulting tidal wave swept aside all the usual checks and balances. It carried along the media, the politicians, the government agencies and the non-governmental organizations with such force that seemingly no one could stand against the tide. By David Lincoln

The purpose of this investigation is threefold:

To trace the evolution of Ocean Management principles.

To begin to track the interaction of these few experts who were responsible for shaping and popularizing these concepts.

To follow the spread of money, power and influence which made these Ocean Management strategies virtually inevitable.

Such an ambitious undertaking would not have been possible were it not for the fact that these few dynamic individuals served as magnets to attract attention to their cause and incredible wealth to whatever projects they controlled at a given time. They did this by ensuring that their theories were the only alternatives seriously considered as US policy was formulated and inexorably implemented.

The problem is that the Pew money machine provided a seemingly endless supply of cash and those who drank from this fountain of wealth became empowered to turn their every wish into reality. They became so adept at revving up the media engine that the science became secondary to their ability to spread their frantic message in ever widening circles.

Ultimately the Pew engine was positioned so far in front of the boat that all ocean science became tainted by Pew science and the best available science was constrained by the only available science. The mantra that “the oceans would soon be running out of fish” reverberated so often that Pew science only needed to fund those programs which were in search of the next great marine crisis to make their agenda the law of the land (and Sea).

With so much money being pumped through the Pew system, other sources of funding either dried up or were overwhelmed by the shear force of the Pew Ocean’s agenda. Over time, it no longer became necessary for anyone to read the policy papers that Pew directly or indirectly funded. Once you knew the title and saw the first paragraph, you would know which slice of the supposedly ever-shrinking pie you were being served on a silver platter.

The review that follows is only a partial overview of these experts’ activities and works with emphasis on those which had the most impact on fisheries management. It is hoped that by documenting the journey of these people, both conceptually and on the map, that some will rethink the pattern of influence which has brought us to this point. Then we can begin to seriously reconsider the alternative pathways both for past management decisions and future policy deliberations.

OREGON CONNECTIONS – Source of the Wave

The origin of the Pew takeover of U.S. Ocean Policy may have begun as early as the 1970’s. J. Howard Pew (the son of the founder of Sun Oil Co) died in 1971 after putting in 70 yrs with his father’s company, leaving vacant the positions of Chairman and CEO of Sunoco. The positions were soon filled by the Sun President, Robert G. Dunlop who also became the Chairman of the Pew Memorial Trusts. These changes set in motion a re-evaluation of the role of the Pew Trusts and a search for a new mission to extend the Pew legacy.

In 1975, Jane Lubchenco, a young zoology student from Washington State Univ., received her PhD from Harvard in Ecology where she was an Asst Professor for 2 years. She and her husband, marine ecologist Bruce Menge, searched for a college that would allow them both to teach together. According to her story, they finally were accepted to share the workload as part-time professors at Oregon State University (OSU) from 1977 to 1989. Later Lubchenco worked there full-time as Professor of Marine Biology and Distinguished Professor of Zoology until 2009 (when she was appointed to head NOAA.)

Coincidentally, during that period (1983-1987), Dr. Ellen Pikitch also worked as an Asst Professor, Dept of Fisheries and Wildlife at Oregon State Univ. after receiving her BS and MA degree in Mathematics from CUNY in 1977 and her MS and Doctorate in Zoology from Indiana Univ. in 1982 and 1983, respectively.

This was also the period when R. Anderson Pew (the great Grandson of the Sun oil Founder) led the Board of the Pew Charitable Trusts (PCT) with a results-oriented, business perspective. He held the position until 1995, but he remains on the PCT Board to the present time.

In 1978, Andy Rosenberg (who had just received his B.S. in Fisheries Biology, from U Mass Amherst) began his graduate program in oceanography at, coincidentally, Oregon State University. He received his MS in Oceanography in 1980 from OSU at the same time that Lubchenco was teaching there. Later he received his Ph.D. in Biology in 1984 from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Shortly thereafter, he moved to London and began working as a Postdoctoral Researcher, at the Centre for Environmental Technology at the Imperial College of Science and Technology, later becoming an Asst Professor and Lecturer there. During this period, he worked at the Renewable Resources Assessment Group and he published several papers on the age and growth of fish. In 1987, he submitted two papers on the topic which appeared in the Conf. Proc. 13 of the International Center for Living Aquatic Resources Management in Manila, Philippines (ICLARM). The papers were on Length- based methods in fisheries research edited by Dr. Daniel Pauly, and G.R. Morgan. He also served as a member of the Working Group on Fish Stock Assessment Methods for the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) while he consulted for many government agencies in the U.K. Norway, Denmark, New Zealand and South Africa.

FISHERIES MANAGEMENT CONNECTIONS – Getting Their Feet Wet

By the late 1980’s to early 1990’s all three marine scientists had become active in fisheries management. The Pew Charitable Trusts under the new Executive Director, Rebecca Rimel, became the second largest private foundation in America based on total giving. This was the around the time that Joshua Reichert, a sociologist with no marine science background, joined the Pew Charitable Trusts to administer the new “Pew Scholars Program in Conservation and the Environment” and the National Environmental Trust was established.

In 1986, Dr Ellen Pikitch was an Associate Professor at Oregon State University where she was working on a project for NOAA to define Catch Quotas.

In 1988, Pikitch et al published “An evaluation of the effectiveness of trip limits as a management tool.” And the following year she served on the Pacific Fishery Management Council, Scientific and Statistical Committee. Lubchenco was elected Vice-President (later President) of the Ecological Society of America.

In 1990, Rosenberg returned to Massachusetts and accepted the position of Chief of Research Coordination, at the National Marine Fisheries Service Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole. A few years later, he became Research Specialist in Population Dynamics, Office of the Senior Scientist for NMFS in Silver Spring, Maryland, where he served until 1994.

Meanwhile, Jane Lubchenco was beginning her career in Ecosystem Management. Between 1977 and 1990 she published eighteen papers (often together with her husband Bruce Menge) dealing broadly with intertidal community interaction in the US coastal zones. Then in 1991, she began focusing on the sustainable biosphere and an ecological research agenda.

Pikitch published “Technological interactions in the U.S. West Coast groundfish fishery and their implications for management”. This was the same year that Carl Safina was awarded a Pew Fellowship for $150,000 to research and write the book “Song for the Blue Ocean.” Rosenberg et al published “Stock rebuilding strategies over different time scales.”

A year later, Lubchenco was awarded a Pew Fellowship for $150,000, part of which she used to set up the Aldo Leopold Fellowship Program, initially known as SpringGreen. Her program evolved from annual Pew Fellows meetings and was designed by Lubchenco to provide training for academic environmental scientists who wished to be more effective in outreach to the media and policy makers.

Rosenberg et al published “Fisheries risk assessment: sources of uncertainty.”

At this time, Robert H. Campbell took over as CEO of Sunoco, a position he held until he retired in 2000 after 40 years of loyal company service. He moved immediately to the Board of the Pew Charitable Trusts and is currently their Chairman.

In 1993, Lubchenco won the prestigious MacArthur “genius” award for $500,000, part of which she used to set up the Aldo Leopold Foundation while she was Director of the World Resources Institute. She and others also published “Priorities for an Environmental Science Agenda in the Clinton- Gore Administration” and “Pacific Ocean Ecosystems and Global Climate Change.”

Meanwhile, Pikitch chaired the Groundfish Subcommittee for the Pacific Fishery Management Council

Rosenberg et al published “Achieving sustainable use of renewable resources,” “Choosing a management strategy for stock rebuilding when control is uncertain”. “Fisheries: opportunities and concerns,” “Marine fisheries at a critical juncture?” and single-handedly he wrote “Defining overfishing – defining stock rebuilding.”

In 1994, Andy Rosenberg took over as Division Chief, Northeast Region, National Marine Fisheries Service and the following year he was named Northeast Regional Administrator, National Marine Fisheries Service NOAA in Gloucester Mass., a position he held until 1998. Here he served as the senior federal official for regional activities from Canada to Cape Hatteras. Part of his duties doing this period was to act as the Agency spokesperson to the public, Congress and internationally. He was the government’s chief negotiator for recovery plans for New England and Mid-Atlantic fishery resources and he was responsible for oversight of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center.

CANADIAN CONNECTIONS – Spreading the Wave

Ironically, this was a period of great cooperation with universities in Canada. In his first year on the job, Rosenberg co-authored with Ransom Myers and others at Dalhousie Univ. (his old college) “In search of thresholds for recruitment overfishing”. Rosenberg et al published “Uncertainty and risk evaluation in stock assessment advice for U. S. marine fisheries”

In 1994, Lubchenco put forward her principles of “The Scientific Basis of Ecosystem Management.” and the Pew Scholars program shifted to recognizing fellows “which expanded the scope of the program beyond the academic science sphere to include individuals from the non-profit, government and private sectors.” It was also the year that the Univ. of British Columbia (UBC) established their Fisheries Science Centre (FSC) whose staff included Dr. Daniel Pauly.

According to the FSC website, “Pauly is a French citizen who completed his high school and university studies in Germany; his doctorate (1979) and habilitation (1985) are in Fisheries Biology, from the University of Kiel.” Dr. Pauly has authored or co-authored over 500 [over 400 since 1994] scientific articles, book chapters and shorter contributions, and authored, or (co-)edited about 30 books and reports.” The Fisheries Science Centre annual reports indicate that, since it was established, The Pew Charitable Trusts have provided more than $15 million in external research funds to the Fisheries Science Centre at UBC.

In 1995, Pikitch served on the National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council, Committee on Ecosystem Management and Sustainable Marine Fisheries for a three year term. Lubchenco was elected to be President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and later their Chairman of the Board. Meanwhile Rosenberg and Myers published “Population dynamics of exploited fish stocks at low population levels” in Science.

In 1996, Lubchenco was named by Bill Clinton to the National Science Board and that year she was also named a Pew Fellow nominator (she participated in the Pew Fellows advisory Committee and was a Pew Fellows nominator until 1998). This was the year that Pew created Seaweb through a $2 million grant to the NRDC for improved Public Relations and Communications.

In that year, Beth Babcock was a fisheries doctoral student working as a summer intern for the NMFS Northwest group. She was working on a bioeconomic model of the trawl fishery and how landing limits influence target species for fishermen. Dr. Ellen Pikitch was Babcock’s major professor at the University of Washington and she was working with Dan Erickson at Oregon State University. Later, Dr. Pikitch and her partner Dr. Babcock went on to write dozens of fisheries papers together as they moved from one Pew position to another.

It was at this time that J. Howard Pew II took over as Chairman of the Pew Charitable Trusts. He was an innovator who pushed for more advocacy and emphasized depth rather than breath in giving. Pew Conservation grants for general environmental issues were refocused on marine conservation and later named the Pew Fellows Program in Marine Conservation.

NEW ENGLAND CONNECTIONS – Testing the Waters

Within a year, that Pew Fellows program was relocated to the New England Marine Aquarium (NEAQ) in Boston and the “total of $1.5 million presented annually made the fellowships the world’s largest award for marine conservationists.” Jerry Schubel, NEAQ Pres directed the $500,000 in annual administrative fees while Gregory Stone (NEAQ Conservation Director) was an early recipient of a $150,000 grant under the new program. Since that time, the Pew Fellows Program in Marine Conservation has awarded over 130 grants totaling more than $20 million.

Pikitch chaired the NEAQ, Aquatic Forum Series, on “Establishing an agenda for responsible fishing,” and joined the Ocean Wildlife Campaign coalition as their lead stock assessment scientist for four years.

Rosenberg et al publish “Assessing uncertainty and risk in exploited marine populations,” and “Precautionary management reference points and management strategies.” Rosenberg, somewhat hypocritically, published “Shielding fisheries from politics.”

In 1997, Pikitch served on the New England Fishery Management Council, Overfishing definition review panel and by the following year she began a two year role as the Chairman of their Scientific and Statistical Committee. At the same time Pikitch et al published “An overview of trends in fisheries, fisheries science and management in Global Trends: Fisheries Management which she co-edited

Lubchenco began serving a three year stint on the National Marine Fisheries Service, Ecosystem Principles Advisory Panel and during the same timeframe was on the Scientific Advisory Board of the PBS Radio Show “Living on Earth.” She also published “Revelation and the Environment AD 95- 1995.”

In 1998, Lubchenco published “Entering the century of the environment: A new social contract for science” and with others published “Marine reserves are necessary but not sufficient for marine conservation.” She also initiated the Aldo Leopold Leadership Program and it was eventually relocated to Stanford Univ.

According to the website, the program consists of two weeks of communications and media training.

“The first weeklong session focuses on leadership development and broad communications and outreach skills. Media representatives and communication specialists conduct “hands on” training, including mock interviews, writing for different audiences, and development of specific messages. The second session, focusing primarily on interaction with policy makers, industry and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), is held in Washington, D.C. The week includes modules on interacting with state and federal agencies, international environmental policy, and working with Congress. This week features a mock Congressional hearing where Fellows practice giving testimony concerning environmental legislation.”

Pikitch et al published “Individual transferable quotas, community based fisheries management systems and “virtual communities,” Meanwhile Rosenberg published “Controlling marine fisheries 50 years from now” and Lubchenco et al. published “No-take reserves: Protection for fishery populations and marine ecosystems.”

In 1999, Lubchenco began the Communication Partnership for Science and the Sea (COMPASS) a consortium of academic scientists, SeaWeb, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium who work together to communicate marine conservation science to policy makers and the public. She also began a 10 year leadership role as Lead Principle Investigator of 13 Co-PIs for the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO). According to her resume:

“With $48 million in grants from the Packard and Moore Foundations, and an additional $30 million in leveraged and complementary funds, this consortium of four universities (OSU, Stanford, UC Santa Barbara and UC Santa Cruz) is revolutionizing our understanding of the nearshore marine ecosystems along the coasts of Oregon and California (1999-2009) with fundamental advances in science.”

Oceana was formed reportedly by contributions from five charitable trusts-the Oak Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Turner Foundation, the Surdna Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trust, but Pew provided the largest share of funds.

That year, the Pew Charitable Trusts awarded $146 million in total grants to 448 organizations which was more than they had given out in the previous 25 yrs. Pew launched the Sea Around Us Project under the Fisheries Science Centre at the Univ. of British Columbia under the leadership of Daniel Pauly. External Research funding for the Fisheries Centre increased about 2 mill/yr from 1.5 mill/yr to roughly 3.5 mill yr at that time and it continued to rise until 2007. Pew also expanded the Pew Fellows Program in Marine Conservation program to “include individuals working in the arts, communication, film, media and journalism in order to support public outreach and education about the oceans.”

At the New England Aquarium, Jerry Schubel along with consultants published a White paper entitled “Potential Environmental Consequences Of Petroleum Exploration And Development On Georges Bank” This paper was issued just as the Canadian government was considering an extension of a moratorium on Georges Bank. The Aquarium concluded that there was not enough information available to make a recommendation. This was followed by a paper by Schubel on Georges Bank Moratorium policy assessment and later on the “Role of Environmental Scientists in Public Policy – A Lesson from Georges Bank.”

The turn of the millennium was a particularly active period for Pew. The Pew Oceans Commission was created which included Jane Lubchenco as the most distinguished marine scientist. The commission initially also included Christine Whitman and Robert H. Campbell, the Chairman and CEO of Sun Oil Co, who became a board member of the Pew Charitable Trusts and is currently the Chairman of the Board for Pew, Hershey Company and a Director of Cigna Corp and Vical Inc.

In 2000, Dr. Ellen Pikitch became a Pew Fellow together with Dr. Amanda Vincent and others. Pikitch provided the SEFSC with a method of estimating the surplus production model from the Catch per Unit Effort. Babcock and Pikitch published “A dynamic programming model of fishing strategy choice in a multispecies trawl fishery with trip limits,” in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries an Aquatic Sciences

Also in Canada, the Fisheries Economics Research Unit was funded at UBC (primarily by Pew) under the direction of economist Rashid Sumaila. In that year alone, Pew awarded $236 million in total grants worldwide.

Shortly thereafter, the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy was formed championed by Andy Rosenberg. He along with others published “The precautionary approach

and risk management: can they increase the probability of successes in fishery management?” and “Ecosystem approaches to fishery management through essential fish habitat.” Lubchenco published “A New Social Contract for Science.”

Rosenberg joined the faculty of the University of New Hampshire where he remains as Professor of Natural Resources. He served as Dean of the College of Life Sciences and Agriculture for four years.

In 2001, the Ransom Myers Lab was opened at Dalhousie. Myers was joined by Boris Worm, a marine biologist and Assistant Professor in Marine Conservation Biology at Dalhousie University shortly after he completed his doctorate in Biological Oceanography from the University of Kiel, Germany. This coincidentally, is the same German university where Pauly completed his doctorate. Since that time, more than 100 articles have been published by Myers and also Worm at the Myers Lab.

Pew funded Oceana initially at more than $5 mill/yr and by the end of the year Pew had contributed $9.5 million. It is interesting to note when Pew was having such an impact on the development of U.S. Oceans policy the official history of the Pew Charitable Trusts “Sustaining the Legacy” published at this time doesn’t even mention the Oceans. The only reference to fishing is ironically the old adage about “teaching a hungry man to fish instead of merely giving him a fish”

At the same time Pikitch, Babcock et al published “Using Bayesian Methods And Decision Analysis As A Rational Basis To Dealing With Conflicting Stock Assessment Results While Providing Management Advice On Stock Rebuilding.” And later,”Using Bayesian Methods To Improve Stock Assessment and Management of Stock Rebuilding When There Is Uncertainty In Processes Affecting Future Recruitment” and finally “Evaluating The Relative Merits Of Alternative Methods To Weight Different Time Series Of Abundance Indices In Stock Assessment”

In 2002, Pikitch and Babcock released their “Critique of the NMFS report, “Relative Precision of discard rate estimates for the Northeast groundfish complex,” Additionally Pikitch testified in Federal Court in Boston on a lawsuit brought against NMFS and the Secretary of Commerce by the Conservation Law Foundation in an effort to toughen groundfish regulations. Dr. Pikitch declared that “No credible scientist could rule out the possibility that irreparable harm (in the sense of a severe and prolonged population collapse) might occur in a situation where populations are brought to, and kept at, extremely low levels.” This is a loaded statement because as NMFS pointed out “there is some finite risk that all populations will eventually go extinct. At issue, is the magnitude of the risk over a specified period of time.”

Pikitch meanwhile publishes a “Scientific Response to the CITES Justification for setting the 2002 Total Allowable Catch of Beluga Sturgeon (Huso huso) in the Caspian Sea,” for Caviar Emptor, her favorite crusade for saving sturgeon from the caviar addicted wealthy Eurasians. Project Seahorse, a biodiversity and marine trade study was brought to the UBC Fisheries Centre under the direction of Dr. Amanda Vincent, a Pew Fellow in 2000.

Rosenberg publishes “The precautionary approach from a manager’s perspective.”

Oceana débuted their new video “Empty Oceans, Empty Nets” with much fanfare at the United Nations. Pikitch introduced the showing and Lubchenco was prominently featured in the film. This video was broadcast on over 200 PBS television stations to well over 1.5 million households around Earth Day as part of a larger series on Marine Fisheries and Aquaculture and it is still regularly screened at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Calif.

FLORIDA CONNECTIONS – Up to Their Necks

In 2003, Marine Policy issues took a dramatic turn with the publication of the now famous letter by Myers and Worm titled “Rapid worldwide depletion of predatory fish communities” which appeared in the journal Nature and “Predator Diversity Hotspots In The Blue Ocean” in PNAS This was a carefully orchestrated media release of a highly controversial theory which claimed that 90 % of the large fish were gone since the advent of industrial fishing. This theory drew strong criticism including more than 30 critical responses from the marine scientific community most of which dealt with the fallacy of projecting biomass from catch per unit effort (CPUE) in a single fishery.

At the bottom of the page was the statement “This research was part of a larger project on pelagic longlining supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts.” Pew, of course, claimed that the work had been peer-reviewed, but in fact most of the reviewers had a conflict of interest due to their financial relationships with Pew. By this time, Pew was awarding grants totaling $180 million/yr from 3.8 billion in assets and more than 300 non-profit organizations were receiving funds from the Pew Charitable Trusts.

In May 2003 the New England Aquarium and Pew released the Ocean Fisheries Action Statement signed by 50 renowned marine scientists calling for the immediate end to overfishing. However, since most of the signatories were Pew fellows, the statement was not seen as unbiased.

This was the year that Andy Rosenberg published “Managing to the margins: the overexploitation of fisheries,” “Multiple uses of marine ecosystems” and he joined the UBC Fisheries Science Centre Intl Board of Advisors, a position which he has held to the current time. In June, Rosenberg went on tour to discuss the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy findings including an interview with NPR’s Living on Earth Radio Show. He, Ransom Myers and others all remarked on the similarities of the two commissions recommendations. Then, in July, the Pew Oceans Commission released its report “America’s Living Ocean: Charting a course for Sea Change”

Lubchenco presented testimony to the Pacific Fisheries Management Council, on the science of marine reserves. Lubchenco et al published “Ecological criteria for evaluating candidate sites for marine reserve” and “Application of ecological criteria in selecting marine reserves and developing reserve networks,” along with at least four other papers on marine reserves.

By the end of the year, The Pew Fellows Program in Marine Conservation abruptly leaves the New England Aquarium and becomes a program of The Pew Institute for Ocean Science (PIOS) in partnership with The Pew Charitable Trusts and the University of Miami Rosenstiel School for Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS). According to their website

The Rosenstiel School is one of the world’s foremost institutions for research on coral reefs, aquaculture techniques, and commercially important fisheries. It runs the Center on Sustainable Fisheries and works closely with two neighboring institutions: NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory and the Southeast Fisheries Science Center.

It is also where NOAA houses their Center for Independent Experts and in fact all of these institutions are located within a few hundred yards of each other.

Dr. Ellen Pikitch, who by then was the Director of the Pew Fellows Program and Pew Institute of Ocean Science (PIOS) at RSMAS in Florida, together with Babcock, released a report with Oceana titled, “How Much Observer Coverage Is Enough to Adequately Estimate Bycatch?” In this report they argue that 20% coverage is enough for common species, but at least 50% is required for rare species. Pikitch also presented Environmental Sustainability, Ocean Issues, and the Millennium Development Goals.”

In February 2004, Rosenberg Lubchenco, Panetta and others held a joint press conference to announce the formation of the Joint Oceans Commission Initiative to carry out the recommendations of the two earlier commissions and to be directed jointly by none other than Rosenberg and Lubchenco.

In April 2004, the U.S Oceans Commission released their much anticipated report “An Ocean Blueprint for the 21st Century,” One of the recommendations was somewhat of a surprise.

“The commission report suggests an ocean trust fund much like the Highway Trust Fund administered by the Department of Transportation. The fund would come from money from leases for offshore activities, such as oil and gas exploration and recovery. Rosenberg says that future permitted activities, such as bioprospecting, wind farms and aquaculture, could join the list as they develop.”

This was a recommendation that the oil companies had long lobbied for because it ultimately ties coastal state revenues to offshore development activities and gives the states a vested interest in removing obstacles to leasing which could accelerate permit approvals.

The Pew Charitable Trust re-organized as a public charity. At the same time, they funded the Lenfest Oceans Program which was begun by Pew with $80 million in assets and $30 million in grants per year. Lenfest began awarding grants to the Canadian Science centers and nearly $400,000 of that money went to programs run by scientists at Dalhousie (including Myers & Worm)

Rosenberg became the Senior V.P. of Marine Resources Assessment Group (MRAG) which was given a contract from Lenfest to assess US fisheries recoveries plans initially supported at about $200,000. Rosenberg later became the President of MRAG Americas.

In 2005 Lightening struck twice for Myers and Worm, helped along by a little media magic from Seaweb. They published a paper in Science, called “Global Patterns of Predator Diversity in the Open Oceans.” Using data from long line fishing vessels again, they pointed to overfishing and climate change as the cause for up to a 50 per cent decline in biodiversity. According to a news interview of Worm:

“To get that message repeated throughout the world, Dr. Worm and Dr. Myers partnered with SeaWeb, a non-profit organization that uses strategic communications techniques to advance ocean conservation, located in Washington D.C. Upon learning of Worm and Myers´ newest paper, SeaWeb began working with them to promote the paper and its message in the media.

Dr. Worm says the key to working with media is preparation, to make it easy for journalists to get the story. “Most of the coverage we received, the reporters never actually talked to us, because the press release was sufficient. In two-and-a-half pages, all the information was there, and we provided interview clips.”

To produce this professional “on-air” interview, the researchers approached Findlay Muir, a videographer with the Centre for Teaching and Learning. They also scouted locations for a video shoot, selecting Chebucto Head as the appropriate backdrop. An interviewer with SeaWeb posed questions remotely from Washington, with both researchers responding and elaborating on their work while Muir did the camerawork. As soon the journal’s publication embargo had passed, SeaWeb distributed the interview material by satellite to its media contacts worldwide. The coverage benefited from having a visual aspect – the story was picked up internationally, by over 90 TV stations.”

In 2005, Rosenberg completed a report for Oceana called “Bycatch in U.S. fisheries, a National Analysis”. During that year Oceana listed annual revenue and support at more than $14 million

Lubchenco and others presented a “Scientific Consensus Statement on Marine Ecosystem-Based Management.” The Consensus was signed by 217 academic scientists with relevant expertise and published in COMPASS. In addition, Carl Safina, A Rosenberg, R Myers, and others published “U.S. Ocean Fish Recovery: Staying the Course” in Science and Rosenberg et al published “Implementing ecosystem-based approaches to management for the conservation of ecosystem services.” and “Combining control measures for more effective management of fisheries under uncertainty; quotas, effort limitation and protected areas.” Pikitch, Babcock et al Published “A perspective on the use of spatialized indicators for ecosystem-based fishery management through spatial zoning” and added “Marine Reserve Design and Evaluation Using Automated Acoustic Telemetry.”

In 2006, the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative Task force (including Rosenberg and Lubchenco) released its report, “From Sea to Shining Sea: Priorities for Ocean Policy Reform,” presented as a national ocean policy action plan for Congress. Included in the recommendations were plans to strengthen NOAA and “Establish an Ocean Trust Fund in the U.S. Treasury as a dedicated source of funds for improved management and understanding of ocean and coastal resources by the federal and state governments.” Also, “securing additional funding to support management, science, and education programs that are the foundation of robust national ocean policy.” Reportedly, the Joint Initiative has identified $750 million in funding priorities that would be used for research, management and education programs. They have been issuing report cards annually grading progress on achieving their goals.

MRAG also released its report “Rebuilding U.S. Fisheries: A Summary of New Scientific Analysis:” by Rosenberg AA, Swasey JH, (both of MRAG) and co-authored by Bowman M., Director of the Lenfest Oceans Program who funded the study. According to the report, “The Program was established in July 2004 by the Lenfest Foundation and is managed by the Pew Charitable Trusts.”

An MRAG second phase report “A Review Of Rebuilding Plans For Overfished Stocks In The United States.” by John Wiedenmann, MRAG Americas, and Dr. Marc Mangel, of the University of California, Santa Cruz which went even further in recommending an end to overfishing and it too was “initiated and supported by the Lenfest Oceans Program.”

Rosenberg et al published “Resolving mismatches in U.S. ocean governance.”

“Designing marine protected areas for migrating fish stocks”, “Regional Governance and Ecosystem-Based Management of Ocean and Coastal Resources: can we get there from here?” and “Rebuilding US fisheries: progress and problems.” While at the same time he was co-PI for “The development of a public private partnership for advancing ocean policy in Massachusetts,” funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and was simultaneously working on a grant for “Comparative Analysis of Ecosystem-based Management Initiatives Around the World” funded by the Packard Foundation.

Worm et al published the highly controversial “Impacts of Biodiversity Loss on Ocean Ecosystem Services,” in which they claimed that “This [loss of biodiversity]trend is of serious concern because it projects the global collapse of all taxa currently fished by the

mid-21st century (based on the extrapolation of regression in Fig. 3A to 100% in the year 2048). This outrageous claim has been repeated literally thousands of times and a Google search of “fish 2048” now yields over 1 million retrievals.

This was also the year that Congress reauthorized the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act under heavy pressure from NGO’s to set catch limits and end overfishing at all costs. Lubchenco published “Can marine reserves or other forms of no-fishing zones help us solve problems facing the oceans today?” Pikitch et al contributed a letter in Ecology Letters called “Global estimates of shark catches using trade records from commercial markets”-

Pikitch also presented the report on Environmental Sustainability of the Ocean recommendations to the United Nations (after serving on the Task Force for two years.). Although the presentation was part of the Millennium Project commissioned by the UN Secretary General and supported by the UNDP, the Pew Logo and maps by Pauly and others from the Sea Around US Project at UBC were prominently displayed.

Task Force Recommendations

• Implement ecosystem-based fishery management
• Eliminate destructive fishing practices
• Establish network of marine protected areas
• Restore depleted fish populations

They demanded that “Global fisheries authorities must agree to eliminate bottom trawling on the high seas by 2006 to protect seamounts and other ecologically sensitive habitats”

This was the year that Robert H Campbell (Pew Chairman of the Board) received over a half million in annual compensation and stock options as a Director of Cigna Corp.

In 2007, The Worm lab transitioned from the Myers Lab. Upon the death of Ransom Myers, Worm became head of the Worm Lab at Dalhousie.

Robert H Campbell (Pew Chairman of the Board) received nearly $700,000 in annual compensation and stock options as a Director of Cigna Corp.

Over at UBC, Pew support for the Fisheries Science Centre exceeded $15 mill with most of those funds coming after the Sea Around Us Project was initiated.

This was the last year that Andy Rosenberg served on the FSC International Advisory Council having completed a 6 year term begun in 2001. Lenfest funded “Setting Annual Catch Limits for U.S. Fisheries” a largely MRAG study in which Rosenberg et al codified how the Regional Fisheries Councils would comply with the re-authorized Magnusun Act. Rosenberg et al also published “Four ways to take the policy plunge: How should researchers best interact with policy-makers for maximum benefit to society?”

Babcock and Pikitch et al published “Comparison of harvest control policies for rebuilding overfished populations within a fixed rebuilding time frame.”

NEW YORK CONNECTIONS – Riding the Wave

In 2008, The Pew Institute of Ocean Science abruptly terminated its contracts with RSMAS in Florida and relocated to SUNY in Stony Brook, New York. Pikitch followed them to SUNY and published the report “Forage Fish: From Ecosystems to Markets” She conveniently chairs the Lenfest Forage Fish Task Force. She and Babcock et al published “New frameworks for reconciling conservation with fisheries: incorporating uncertainty and ecosystem processes into fisheries management.”

Lubchenco et al. published “Resilience, robustness and marine ecosystem-based management.”

This was the year that Pauly resigned from UBC and Rashid Sumaila of the Fisheries Economics Research Unit, was named acting Director of Fisheries.

R. Anderson Pew was forced to retire from the Board of Directors SUNOCO due to his age, but he received more than $1million in deferred compensation. He was a Director since 1978 (30 years).

In 2009, The Joint Oceans Commission Initiative (including Lubchenco and Rosenberg) released a report “Changing Oceans, Changing World Ocean Priorities for The Obama Administration and Congress”

Ted Danson (the founder of Oceana) narrated and promoted the film “End of the Line'” which was selected for the Sundance Festival and then released to hundreds of theaters in the US and the UK. The trailer says that it is “the world’s first major documentary about the devastating effect of overfishing and “Scientists predict that if we continue fishing as we are now, we will see the end of most seafood by 2048.” The press packet states that it is “supported by numerous groups, including Greenpeace and Oceana.”

Lubchenco was appointed to be Undersecretary of Commerce and Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration, the head of NOAA, perhaps the most powerful position impacting ocean policy in the world. She will lead a $4 billion agency with nearly 13,000 employees stationed all over the U.S. and around the world. Rosenberg campaigned for her appointment and was her most vocal supporter when President Obama nominated her.

Worm, Rosenberg, et al published “Rebuilding Global Fisheries” in which Worm stated that he never meant for his 2048 doomsday date for the oceans to be taken literally. They got there 1 million hits on Google literally by accident?

Sumaila and others at Environmental Working Group (EWG) published “US Fisheries Subsidies,” in which they claimed that direct subsidies and financial support of U.S fisheries exceeded $700 million/yr. Shortly thereafter, Sumaila was named the Director of Fisheries Science Centre at UBC.

According to Pikitch’s resume

“During the past several years I have appeared on TV programs including CNN, CNBC, NBC News, Discovery News, EXTRA, and Wild about Animals, given numerous radio interviews and have been quoted in thousands of newspaper articles. My outreach activities have included Op-Ed’s and articles in newspapers, magazines, scientific journals, books, and technical reports.”

Rosenberg is positioned in MRAG to take advantage of NOAA’s requirement for observer coverage paid for by the fishing fleets under the system of Catch Shares which he helped to formulate. According to Rosenberg’s resume he has several works with others in press including “Two views: marine ecosystem-based management” and “Managing for cumulative impacts in ecosystem-based management through ocean zoning.” He lists Lubchenco as a professional reference

In 2009, the Pew Board consists of Robert H. Campbell, and 9 Pew heirs out of 14 Board members including R. Anderson Pew. The Pews have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to influence ocean management policies. Recently Pew announced that they were consolidating their operations in Washington D.C. in a single building with at least 300 people. Still, they plan to keep most of the operations and personnel they have in Philadelphia. Shouldn’t we be asking what is next on their agenda?

 “Cape Wind Spokesman Mark Rodgers, “Do you have the tea party in Germany?””

Germany resists EU plans to slash renewable energy subsidies

“A leading Social Democrat warned yesterday (6 November) that the EU planned to investigate German renewable energy discounts for industry, a move that could end up hitting a raft of companies operating in Europe’s biggest economy.”

Or this further down:

‘A problem for Europe’

“Across Europe’s 15 oldest member states (EU15), transmission charges, taxes or renewable subsidies account for roughly half the average household bill, VaasaETT energy research group said.

Danish households, for example, pay Europe’s highest electricity bills at around 31 euro cents per kilowatt-hour because more than half of the cost, or 55%, is made up of taxes, according to a report into energy bills by VaasaETT.”

http://www.euractiv.com/energy/germany-resists-eu-plans-slash-r-news-531558

From Der Spiegel two months ago, and this should highlight how economically damaging this would be to any countries economy:

‘Germany’s Energy Poverty: How Electricity Became a Luxury Good’

“If there is too much power coming from the grid, wind turbines have to be shut down. Nevertheless, consumers are still paying for the “phantom electricity” the turbines are theoretically generating. Occasionally, Germany has to pay fees to dump already subsidized green energy, creating what experts refer to as “negative electricity prices.”

On the other hand, when the wind suddenly stops blowing, and in particular during the cold season, supply becomes scarce. That’s when heavy oil and coal power plants have to be fired up to close the gap, which is why Germany’s energy producers in 2012 actually released more climate-damaging carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than in 2011.”

The main point of the article:

“German consumers already pay the highest electricity prices in Europe. But because the government is failing to get the costs of its new energy policy under control, rising prices are already on the horizon. Electricity is becoming a luxury good in Germany, and one of the country’s most important future-oriented projects is acutely at risk.”

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/high-costs-and-errors-of-german-transition-to-renewable-energy-a-920288.html

GREEN ENERGY CORRUPTION ; CRONY CAPITALISM….

With the Chief Liar in the White House, it should be ALL HANDS ON DECK to have those in congress stop this meddling with our energy industry as we not only have the fossil fuel resources to lower energy prices for decades to come, and yet it has been proven time and again that green energy has to be:

– highly subsidized
– financial guarantees to protect those private businesses that invest in offshore wind and solar

and that the outcome for consumers is:

– the sticker shock on their monthly electric and heating bills
– ever rising energy costs for transportation and food production which is also passed onto consumers

As has been one of the main goals of President Zero’s Administration to destroy the American coal industry. For those who want to see the latest news on this, and it continues to be updated almost daily about the EPA and the regulatory road blocks on coal, go to:

https://www.google.com/#q=EPA+OUT+TO+DESTROY+COAL+ENERGY

Bathhouse Barry, the community organizing activist, is intent in radically changing this country and green energy is neither as green as they say, nor does it give relief for Americans in heating their homes or lowering electrical energy rates, nor cheaper prices for transportation petroleum products.

Ask yourself, why keep delaying KEYSTONE XL? Why the crushing regulations against coal (wake up Senator Joe from West Virginia)? Why the delay in permits for drilling by the Interior Department on federal lands and along our coast? Why is their a continued demonetization of a 60 year old technology, fracking…(yes Andy ‘HUD’ Cuomo, choosing gambling over fracking in the economically depressed southern tier of NY)……

Ah, CAPE WIND…CAPE WIND, why shouldn’t those two connected words raise the hairs on the back of our necks?

From a month ago:

‘Cape Wind: Another Solyndra boondoggle in the making’

“For all of that, things may be about to get even worse. For almost a decade, a firm has been seeking to begin construction on one of the world’s largest wind farm projects – Cape Wind – to be built on Horseshoe Shoal in Nantucket Sound off the coast of Massachusetts at Cape Cod. The problem is that private financing just isn’t there for such an endeavor, which means private investors believe Cape Wind is a loser.”

“If Cape Wind is ever to be completed, it would produce electricity at two to three times what ratepayers are typically paying for the same energy coming from coal, natural gas and nuclear power.”

http://www.humanevents.com/2013/10/03/cape-wind-another-solyndra-boondoggle-in-the-making/

If there is ONE walkaway value here, ANYTHING that O’Bummers administration tells you is “A GOOD DEAL FOR YOU”, is a complete LIE….its a fleecing of your money, destroying the free market economic environment in this country and causing greater reliance on government.

Read the comments on the above link…

Make a difference in the 2014 midterm elections and vote out those who support this administration.

—————————————————————

Europeans Bank Accounts Finally Give A Big Fail On Green Energy Scam

It’s a “green energy train wreck” playing out in socialist governments across Europe who bought into global warming scam….with the main problem being that green energy is neither green, nor cheap for the consumer or provides economic benefits to “those countries which mistakenly dove head first into the shallow end of the solar and wind energy pool.”

What is most troubling is that taxpayer subsidies are continually needed to prop up the development by private companies of renewable energy where the technology is neither competitive to either businesses or consumers at this time and will not be competitive for decades to come due to the oil shale revolution, along with the availability of cheap-clean coal power plants.

We see this here in our country that green energy is actually a TAX levied upon the US economy, yet the President Zero has been using the Energy Department (Is Steven Chu an esteemed scientist or loan officer?) to subsidizing a number of green energy ventures, run by fat-cat democratic donors to his campaign that have gone bankrupt within a few short years, while also stifling permits to drill on federal lands through his Department of Interior (who can forget job-destroying Cowboy Ken?) or use the scandal ridden EPA to hammer the coal industry in this country. Even Forbes Magazine pointed out that the EPA may be the most rogue federal government agency during President Zero’s tenure as it was run under Lisa “Email” Jackson. Among the numerous points made in this article, this one paragraph highlights how are economy is being wrecked by this administration. To wit:

“EPA is a serial offender when it comes to egregious government waste, fraud, abuse, and just plain sleaziness. The agency buys influence by doling out hundreds of millions of dollars each year to certain favored non-profit organizations – money that, according to the inspector general and Government Accountability Office, is dispersed with no public notice, competition or accountability.”

Source: The EPA’s Lisa Jackson: The Worst Head of the Worst Regulatory Agency, Ever: http://www.forbes.com/sites/henrymiller/2013/01/30/the-epas-lisa-jackson-the-worst-head-of-the-worst-regulatory-agency-ever/

Getting back to our European friends who figuratively speaking, “don’t have a pot to pee in anymore”, they have come to realize that they are not only destroying their countries economies, but the whole concept of a powerful European Union by dragging down economic growth to levels where they will go bankrupt (a number are, or pretty close to bankrupt at this time). The fear of a “Greek-style” crash and burn has even shook the once vibrant German economy to the point where Angela Merkel has finally said “alvederzane” to green energy subsidies.

As Terry Keenan pointed out in Sundays edition of the NY POST, both Europeans and Americans are looking at the surprising quick resurgence of the “Russian Bear”, which literally went bankrupt during the mid-nineties when oil prices collapsed, and now has re-built their economy on the back of black gold and natural gas to the point where they now have a “balanced budget (hello), debt to GDP ratio of under 10%, and the lowest unemployment rate in two decades”, while at the same time that vodka and black market moonshine consumption has remained strong.

It brings us to the point where one has to wonder why President Zero has been bent over and “all in” like Paula Broadwell was. Again it is that funny little thing that socialist like Obama rally against on the campaign trail, money and the rich, yet seem to always have an influence on the policies coming out of this current progressive administration:

“It is easy to ridicule Obama’s scientific ignorance, but as always in these matters, the key is to follow the money. Obama wants to pour many billions more into “green energy” scams that mostly benefit Democratic Party donors and Obama administration cronies. Taking advantage of the mathematically illiterate, he touted our ostensibly booming “clean” energy industries.”

And….

“But along the way, the power of the federal government will be expanded and its ability to shift tens of billions of dollars to the Democratic Party’s cronies will be enhanced. That’s the real point of the potpourri of bad ideas that masquerades as Obama’s energy policy.”

Source: Posted on June 25, 2013 by John Hinderaker in Energy Policy – Obama Renews His War On Coal: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/06/obama-renews-his-war-on-coal.php

So what is the walk away value here to the current green energy scam going on this country?

First, it is costing us in growing our stagnant economy since it is a burdensome tax on ever American in this country.

Second is that green energy IS NOT cheap energy, either upstream or downstream to the consumer. IT WILL NOT LOWER ENERGY BILLS.

Third is how the US government continues to pick winners and losers, with the winners being those who democratic donors who invest in the green energy scam via solar or wind power, and the losers being those at the gas and diesel pump who drive a vehicle or have a boat, or like to keep their homes warm in the winter and cool in the summer.

Fourth is the regulatory scandal being waged against the coal industry in this country, or the consistent regulatory hurdles being placed upon the natural gas fracking industry, or the unnecessary, un-ending delays in approving the Keystone XL pipeline.

Let this current lesson being played out in Europe be a warning to what President Zero and the rest of his progressive apparatchiks can do not only to our wallets, but to the American economy.

As Benny Peiser noted in the article ‘Europe Pulls The Plug On Its Green Future’:

“The EU summit signaled Europe intended to restore its declining competitiveness by supporting the development of cheap energy, including shale gas, while cutting green energy subsidies.”

Remember this come the 2014 mid-term elections. When a politician says “they are a supporter of wind farms and solar panels”…hold onto your wallet and pull the lever for the other person on the ticket.

——————————————————————————————-

So crickets from the fishing industry on the fraud called ocean wind farming?

This is not farming for the benefit of the American public…oh “no siree”…..this is for the benefit of big green investors who see the cash cow from green energy being rammed-rodded into the American economy.

First, why are their government subsidies to private green energy investments? Do we have a great need for much more costly green energy at the detriment to the American economy when fossil fuels are much cheaper for the consumer to purchase and as clean to use at this time? Haven’t we seen the US Energy Department gamble and throw away multi-billions of taxpayer dollars on various green energy projects which ended up bankrupt just after a few short years or these companies bond rating being classified as JUNK?

“According to the Washington Free Beacon, “Seven solar companies received fast-tracked approval by the Department of the Interior to lease federal lands in a no-bid process: Abengoa Solar, BrightSource Energy, First Solar, Nevada Geothermal Power, NextEra Energy Resources, Ormat Nevada, and SolarReserve.” Each of these seven companies –– despite “junk bond” status, received billions of DOE funds under the 1705 loan program as well as renewable energy grants from the Treasury Department.:

From: THE GREEN CORRUPTION FILES – http://greencorruption.blogspot.com/2

Second, shouldn’t one of the primary issues be the taxpayers themselves reaping the benefits from the so-called green wind energy? Are electrical and heating rates just going to be magically cut in half when this particular project is up and running?

Third is the issue of the government backing the wind investors if their investment just does not make the future projected earnings? (heavens forbid a progressive, green energy investor will lost money during this administration) To wit:

“Critics like the New England Ratepayers Association warn the Rhode Island Sound wind farms could cost the public and ratepayers big money, potentially $2.9 billion over 15 years, if federal wind-energy production tax credits are extended.

“It’s unbelievably expensive, it’s an intermittent power source that requires you to keep gas plants on standby. Offshore wind is just a terrible deal,” Ratepayers Association president Marc Brown said in a telephone interview Wednesday.”

From: Rhode Island Sound opened for wind power – http://www.necn.com/07/31/13/Rhode-Island-Sound-opened-for-wind-power/landing_business.html?blockID=848145&feedID=11106

“Terrible deal?” Yes, not only for the American taxpayers and Rhode Island electrical rate payers, but also to the resident and migrating marine birds which seem to fly into these bird-Cuisinarts. Ah, but this is one of those little footnotes that are rarely mentioned about these energy clean sources effecting the environment and those that live in the environment such as birds. Heavens forbid if a dead endangered bird is found on your property…To wit from FORBES on May 16, 2013 – The Endangered Species Act And Wind Power: A Rule, Or More Of A Guideline?:

“It seems that the Fish and Wildlife Service has for years willfully refused to act when birds – including Bald Eagles, Golden Eagles and even the highly endangered California Condor – die horrible deaths by flying into the enormous blades of 300 foot-tall wind turbines that litter broad swaths of landscapes in many parts of the country. Even worse, the Administration has refused to act while at the same time filing civil and even criminal charges against fossil fuel companies that experience listed bird deaths on their properties.”

We know the “warm and fuzzy” language and propaganda which the green energy forces use in their news bits and press releases about this being “clean, renewable and it does not hurt the environment”…but clean and renewable, and more so, being benign to anything that comes near it, I ask?

Folks this is another bad deal from President Zero and his BIG FAIL administration…. and if one questions why, how many times do we hear often quoted “World Energy Outlook – IAE annual report” calling the US the new Saudi Arabia of Natural Gas, but also the US economy can reap the benefits from clean coal technology along with receiving the enormous benefits from the Keystone XL, if the pipeline….”IF” it is ever approved. The result to every American and American businesses is not only lower prices on petroleum based fuel products, but also heating and electrical rates.

Still don’t believe this? Maybe hearing it from a Saudi Prince that fracking and oil and gas recovery from shale could have a very big negative economic effect on his country…..yes fossil fuels, not the threat from the development of green energy!

“Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has warned that the kingdom’s oil-dependent economy is increasingly vulnerable to rising U.S. energy production, breaking ranks with oil officials in Riyadh who have played down its impact.”

From: The Wall St. Journal, 3 days ago: Shale Threatens Saudi Economy, Warns Prince Alwaleed
Investor Says Kingdom’s Economy Increasingly Vulnerable; http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323854904578635500251760848.html

The American public is being hood-winked time and again with the green energy scam of wind farms and solar panels. One just has to look at our socialist friends in Europe who have dropped subsidies for green energy projects (in fact as far back as in 2011).

In fact while BOEM is proclaiming the success in wind energy leases, nine European countries are or have pulled back from green energy subsidies. To wit:

“Historically, most of the energy debate in many of these legislative bodies has centered almost exclusively on ensuring that citizens have ready access to affordable and reliable energy.

Unfortunately, over the past several years, the energy debate has shifted.  Instead of worrying about the cost and dependability of energy, many legislators are now focusing on ways in which certain politically preferred energy sources—most commonly wind and solar—can be deployed in favor of more conventional sources.  These policymakers and other environmental advocates will often point to Europe as models for how governments can best encourage the use of “green” energy sources.

It turns out, however, that these models are now proving to be powerful examples of what not to do.”

From: European Lessons on Renewable Energy Subsidies: Todd Wynn and John Eick | May 29, 2013
http://www.americanlegislator.org/european-lessons-on-renewable-energy-subsidies/

As Juliette Lewis said in Natural Born Killers, “bad-bad-bad”, especially at this time when it comes to sectioning off the ocean for wind farms.off our shores.

For more information on these mutli-billion dollar green energy frauds being committed by President Zero and his administration, see:

THE GREEN CORRUPTION FILES

http://greencorruption.blogspot.com/

“Since 2009 we’ve been tracking President Obama’s clean-energy dirt (aligned with the Left as well as those with political “access and influence”), proving that the Green Corruption Scandal is the largest, most expensive and deceptive case of crony capitalism in American history. Stay tuned as we expose one piece of this scandal at a time…”

Fishermen make the change come the 2014 mid-term elections and vote in those legislators who support cheaper energy for the American consumer.

Comment here

—————————————————————————————————

Really Congressman Pallone?

Really Congressman Pallone…”give away public resources to wealthy, multi-national corporations at the cost of American taxpayers and our environment.”

Why don’t we remove “oil and natural gas” and re-place that with “towering wind turbines and acres of ocean access to the American public closed off due to wind farms.”

This is all part of the progressive Big Green Money Machine in cahoots with the West Wing of the White House using the same tired progressive talking points to scare the public on America’s readily available and cheap fossil fuel resources.

Maybe he should read the article in the CFN (Commercial Fishing News – July) on page 13 with BOEM and their “OFFSHORE” lease sale to the “HIGHEST BIDDERS” for the ocean rights for wind energy projects…yes the area East of Block Island and south of Rhode Island, covering a highly fished portion of Cox Ledge.

Congressman Pallone, who do you think can afford to buy these leases on ocean real estate off our coast….your constituents?….NO…. in your own words, “wealthy, multi-national corporations” and the list of bidders includes some of the biggest “players” in the wind industry.

Fishermen, in the progressive playbook, WEAs (Wind Energy Areas) are “good” just a couple of miles from our shorelines, but drilling along the canyons and shelf to recover oil and natural gas, are “really, really bad.” Ask yourself, does that sound right?

What’s next for Congressman Pallone when it comes to Americans having the choice of paying less for various sources of energy and for producing high paying jobs in the United States……being against the Keystone XL pipeline?

From: NJ BIZ.com:

“On the Keystone XL Pipeline: “I’m concerned about the Keystone Pipeline, so I have taken a position largely against it, or at least to have more studies be done, because I think that it has potential problems.”

You think? More studies to be done?

Link is here:http://www.njbiz.com/article/20130611/STATEST/130619932/Pallone-cites-’progressive’-values-jabs-Booker?template=state-street.

Voters, remember this when you fill up your car or plug in your electric car, or turn the lights on in your home, and see the price you pay because of the BHO administration war against fossil fuel and clean coal…and yes, without them, you might as well as be living in a 3rd world nation.

Don’t be fooled with the catch phrase, “renewable clean energy.” Any energy product comes with, and bears a intrinsic cost which you can never get away from, either in producing the products that collects the energy, and as much, delivers the energy product to both industry and consumers.

See what Congressman Pallone fails to mention is the economics behind green energy, especially since it will not lower the cost of energy to consumers!

Worst as now being seen in the once thought of “safe” Solar Industry, due to the highly competitive world market in the sale of solar panel equipment, sliding retail prices have forced solar panel makers to “cut corners” with their product resulting in a ever higher failure rate, along with the rising cost of disposing of these solar panels due to the various metals that are used in the product.

Even the NY TIMES pointed this out in a May 2013 piece in their Business Section – Solar Industry Anxious Over Defective Panels; http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/business/energy-environment/solar-powers-dark-side.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

What should upset everyone here is that you have a progressive congressman carrying the water for an administration whose aim has been to keep the cost of fossil fuel products high and eventually create a carbon tax and cap & trade market that will enrich the pockets of their progressive minions at the expense of the public. Yes REDISTRIBUTE THE WEALTH.

How about BHO’s big speech in Africa and sending 7 billion dollars over to improve the “energy grid” in Africa? What do you think the source of energy will be…..solar, wind, hydro? NO……the biggest bang for the buck is fossil fuel plants, in particular petroleum and coal based products, especially since they are found and being supplied from in that region of the world.

Don’t be fooled here fishermen when your paying anywhere from 3.50 to 4.20 to fill up your vessel.

Look at the Captain Louis Renault “I’m shocked” moment by West Virginia Senator Manchin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fipFpLss3w

All of a sudden this democrat realizes that BHO is attacking the primary industry and jobs in his state…and hurting his hopes for being “re-elected?”

If a politician is going to standup for “anything” it should be working in the best interests of the people of the country, and here once again you have a politician whose primary concern is in having the support of the BHO administration and being re-elected to office.

Fishermen, over the last few years, how has this worked out for you?

Comment here

Nils Stolpe is our Honored Guest. Click on the fishnetUSA icon to open the window to his website.

—————————————————————————————————————–

Towards rationalit​y in fisheries management​/FishNet USA

–

Bearing in mind that each edition of The Economist has a print circulation of about 1.5 million, its website attracts about 8 million visitors each month, and that the people who read it are among the world’s most influential, consider the “take home” message that anyone with little or no knowledge of fisheries – maybe 99% of the readers – is being given; that stability of production in a fishery is an indication  of overfishing, and even more importantly, that overfishing is unacceptable because it limits  production.
–

Now we all know that sustainability is the managers’ goal in our fisheries. In fact, this goal is part of the legal underpinnings of each of the fisheries management plans in effect in – and sometimes beyond – the US Exclusive Economic Zone.
–

According to the legislation controlling fisheries management in US federal waters, the first National Standard for Fishery Conservation and Management is that “conservation and management measures shall prevent overfishing while achieving, on a continuing basis, the optimum yield from each fishery for the United States fishing industry.”  This is fine up to a point. The optimum yield from a fishery is defined in the Act as “(A) the amount of fish which will provide the greatest overall benefit to the Nation, particularly with respect to food production and recreational opportunities, and taking into account the protection of marine ecosystems; (B) is prescribed as such on the basis of the maximum sustainable yield from the fishery, as reduced by any relevant economic, social, or ecological factor.” No problems so far, the law recognizes that the optimum harvest from a fishery is not necessarily the maximum sustainable harvest.But then we have “(C) in the case of an overfished fishery, provides for rebuilding to a level consistent with producing the maximum sustainable yield (MSY) in such fishery.”
–

Adding their interpretation to this, the people at NOAA/NMFS, with the enthusiastic support of the various and sundry anti-fishing activists who pull way too many of the strings in Washington, have added as an administrative guideline that “the most important limitation on the specification of OY (optimum yield) is that the choice of OY and the conservation and  management measures proposed to achieve it must  prevent overfishing.”

–

So while OY from each fishery, determined with consideration given to relevant economic, social, or ecological factors, seems to be the goal of federal fisheries management, that is just window dressing. The real requirement is for each and every fishery to be at MSY.

–
From an administrative perspective, a perspective that has far more to do with the influence that the aforementioned activists had and continue to have than on the real-world needs of commercial and recreational fishermen and the communities and businesses that they support, this probably makes a certain amount of sense. After all, who could possibly argue about every fishery faithfully producing at maximum levels year after year? As the people at The Economist, at the ENGOs whose bank accounts are bloated with mega-foundation cash, and in the offices of Members of Congress who don’t have – or who don’t value – working fishermen as constituents want to convince us all, overfishing is something akin to the eighth deadly sin.

–
But is it?

–
From a real world perspective, a perspective that is shared by an increasing number of people who are knowledgeable about the oceans and their fisheries and who value the traditions and the communities that have grown up around them as well as the economic activity that fisheries are capable of producing, this proscription against “overfishing” is an ongoing train wreck.

–
And at this point, because it’s The Law, nothing can be done about it.

–
A hypothetical situation:

–
Suppose there was an important fishery that was the basis of a large part of the coastal economy as well as the cultural cement that held coastal communities together. Then suppose that fishery started to decline. If you were a fishery manager and you were in charge, what would you do? Though not in what should be the real world, that’s a simple question with an even more simple answer in today’s world of federal fisheries management. Regardless of any other factors you would cut back on fishing effort.

–
Suppose that didn’t work, suppose that the fishery continued to decline. What would you do then? Because you have no other realistic options you’d cut back on fishing effort even more.

–
And suppose even that didn’t work. If there were still any fishermen fishing, you’d cut back their fishing effort yet again. And again and again and again until you had gotten rid of them all, in spite of whether the cutbacks had any noticeable effects of the fish or not.

–
As we saw above, this would all be based on a so-called fishery management “plan” that was created under the strict requirements of a surprisingly short and what has become an even more surprisingly short sighted bit of federal legislation and the administrative interpretation of that legislation. The Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Conservation and Management Act (MSFCMA) – which was written initially with good intentions towards US fishermen and signed into law in 1976 – has been purposefully distorted by outside groups and individuals with no legitimate ties to or empathy with the businesses and people dependent on fishing but with huge budgets provided by mega-foundations which themselves are provided with a convenient government-supplied coordinating mechanism (See http://www.fishnet-usa.com/All%20Stolpe%20Columns.htm#CGBD).

–
Why is it a “so-called” management plan? Back a few more years than I’d like to acknowledge I spent some time in the graduate planning department at Rutgers University, concentrating on environmental planning. Not too surprisingly, one of the topics that came up repeatedly was rational planning; what it is and how to do it. Putting together a bunch of definitions and some foggy recollections, in creating a rational plan you 1) define a problem or a goal, 2) design                  alternative actions to solve the problem/achieve the goal, 3) evaluate each alternative action, 4) chose and implement the “best” alternative action, and 5) monitor/evaluate the outcome and adjust if necessary.

–
This seems pretty simple and straightforward. How does it apply to fisheries management plans? If the problem with the New England groundfish fishery is that there are people making a living based on harvesting groundfish and if the goal is to stop them from doing that, then the managers and the management plan are right on target. But I suspect that most involved individuals/organizations aren’t purposely planning to solve that problem/achieve that goal.

–
So why, after a seemingly endless series of less groundfish can only be fixed by less groundfish fishing iterations, are the groundfish fishermen – those who are still working – and the communities that depend on them just barely hanging on with fewer fish to catch following each cutback in fishing effort?

–
While this idea is going to be ridiculed by all of  those anti-fishing activists whose careers are predicated on blaming just about every ocean ill on overfishing, perhaps it’s because overfishing isn’t the problem that they’ve built multimillion dollar empires on by convincing the world – and the U.S. Congress – that it is.

–
But for the moment let’s pretend that we don’t have a fisheries management system that has been torqued into something worse than ineffectuality by their lobbying clout. Let’s pretend that the people responsible for creating fisheries management plans in general and the groundfish plan – actually the multispecies plan – in particular were trying to do some rational planning. Where would they go from here?

–
What about competition between species?

–
Obviously, having lived with the effectiveness – or  the lack thereof – of continuously cutting back on groundfish fishing, they’d look for an alternative or two (and no, opening parts of several previously closed areas of the EEZ while demanding full-time, industry paid observer on every vessel that fishes in them isn’t anything approaching a reasonable alternative). It’s hard to imagine that early on they wouldn’t consider the idea that other, competing species might be in part responsible for declining stocks. That’s the way the natural world has worked,  is working and will continue to work.

1953 – Spiny dogfish biomass unknown – “Voracious almost beyond belief, the dogfish entirely deserves its bad reputation. Not only does it harry and drive off mackerel, herring, and even fish as large as cod and haddock, but it destroys vast numbers of them. Again and again fishermen have described packs of dogs dashing among schools of mackerel, and even attacking them within the seines, biting through the net, and releasing such of the catch as escapes them. At one time or another they prey on practically all species of Gulf of Maine fish smaller than themselves, and squid are also a regular article of diet whenever they are found.” (Fishes of the                      Gulf of Maine, Bigelow, H.B. and W.C. Schroeder)

About ten years ago fishermen started complaining about the impact that the huge numbers of spiny dogfish off our coast were having on other much more valuable fisheries. As a result I organized a workshop on spiny dogfish/fisheries interactions in September of 2008 (see A Plague of Dogfish at http://www.fishnet-usa.com/dogforum1.htm) and have attempted to keep informed of spiny dogfish biology since then. One of the ways that I do this is by keeping an eye on things like landings and survey data, which NOAA/NMFS makes readily available via various web pages.

–
Among the most interesting data sets I have found are the reports of the bottom trawl surveys which have been carried out by Northeast Fisheries Science Center vessels every year for over half a century (to access the recent reports go to http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/femad/ecosurvey/mainpage/  and click on “Cruise Results” in the menu on the left). The assumed reliability and reproducibility of these surveys is such that they are one of the primary data sources in the stock assessments for many of our important fisheries. In recent years spiny dogfish at times have comprised upwards of 50% by weight of all of the fish taken in these surveys.

–
Looking for another way of addressing the spiny dogfish situation, I put together a spreadsheet of the percentage (by weight) of spiny dogfish and Atlantic cod caught in the Spring and Autumn bottom trawl surveys for the last ten years and graphed the results (because the annual Winter survey was discontinued half way through this time period, I omitted it).

I was surprised to see how well the high abundance levels of spiny dogfish coincided with the low abundance levels of Atlantic cod – the primary groundfish species – and vice versa. (Note that this relationship wasn’t apparent in prior years.)
It seems in-your-face obvious that in recent years there been something going on between spiny dogfish and Atlantic cod abundance (I looked at the trawl survey results for a number of other species relative to spiny dogfish and none of them exhibited such a dramatic apparent relationship).

–
Of course this could be an example of post hoc ergo propter hoc (basically correlation doesn’t equal causation). But then again, it could not as well.

1992 – Spiny dogfish biomass estimated at 735 thousand metric tons: “given the current high abundance of skates and dogfish, it may not be possible to increase gadoid (cod and haddock) and flounder abundance without `extracting’ some of the current standing stock.” (Murawski and Idoine, Multi species size composition: A conservative property of exploited fishery systems in Journal of Northwest Atlantic Fishery Science, Volume 14: 79-85)

James Sulikowski at the University of New England in Biddeford, Maine has been intensively involved in shark and ray research for twenty years. He is currently focusing on spiny dogfish and along with population and distribution work has begun to look at prey and predation. According to Dr. Sulikowski “preliminary analysis of stomach content data suggest  a high degree of dietary overlap between dogfish and Atlantic cod as Atlantic herring, Cluepea harengus, was found to be the primary prey item of both species. In addition, preliminary stable isotope data suggests evidence of niche overlap between cod and dogfish, although the extent of overlap may change seasonally. Collectively, the stomach content and stable isotope data suggests dogfish and cod are in competition for resources within this ecosystem.”

–

How does this apply to the current Northeast Multispecies (groundfish) Fisheries Management Plan?

–

In fact, it doesn’t apply at all. The multispecies plan is based on the assumption that fishing is the only thing influencing the groundfish stocks – including Atlantic cod. Considering that fishing is the only thing that federal legislation permits the New England Fishery Management Council to manage, its members have become quite adept at managing it. The fact that an extensive and still ongoing series of fishing cutbacks hasn’t stopped the decline of the primary groundfish species – led by Atlantic cod – seems to be irrelevant to them doing that.

1994 – Spiny dogfish biomass estimated as 514 thousand metric tons: “…preliminary calculations indicated that the biomass of commercially important species consumed by spiny dogfish was comparable to the amount harvested by man. Accordingly, the impact of spiny dogfish consumption on other species should be considered in establishing harvesting policies for this species.” (18th Stock Assessment Workshop, Northeast Fisheries Science Center).

The graph below shows the spiny dogfish total biomass estimates from the Northeastern Fisheries Science Center’s spring bottom trawl surveys. The highest estimated biomass, 1.131 million metric tons (or about 2.5 billion pounds), was in 2012 (from data in in Table 7 of Update on the Status of Spiny Dogfish in  2012 and Initial Evaluation of Harvest at the Fmsy  Proxy by Rago and Southesby and MAFMC staff and identified as not representing “any final agency                  determination or policy”). For reference, the total allowed catch (TAC) of spiny dogfish will be under 20,000 metric tons (the solid red line) a year for the next three years.

2008 – Spiny dogfish biomass estimated at 657 thousand metric tons: “All told, 87% of the stomach contentsfrom these particular Gulf of Maine caught dogfish (401 adult dogfish collected by University of New England researcher James Sulikowski and his students)  consisted of bony fish – with cod, herring, and sand lance being the top three species.” (J. Plante, Dogfish in the Gulf of Maine eat cod, herring, Commercial Fisheries News, May 2008).

_______________________________________________

The two graphs below – from the Northeast Fisheries Science Center’s web page Status of Fishery Resource off the Northeastern US – Atlantic cod (http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/sos/spsyn/pg/cod/) show the decline of cod abundance calculated from both the Spring and Autumn bottom trawl surveys in the Gulf of Maine and on Georges Bank. Note that as the calculated spiny dogfish biomass (above) is increasing the biomass indices for Atlantic cod in both the Gulf  of Maine and on Georges Bank are decreasing correspondingly.

It has been reported that spiny dogfish consume 1.5% of their weight per day. That translates to them eating about 17000 metric tons of anything slower/smaller/less voracious than they are every day.

2009 – Spiny dogfish biomass estimated at 557 thousand metric tons: “our reason for ontacting you is to draw your attention to a severe and growing problem that we are all facing because of the supposed constraints imposed on the federal fisheries management system by the most recent amendments to the Magnuson Act. Because of the supposed necessity of having all stocks being managed at OY/MSY, all of our fisheries are and have been suffering from a plague of spiny dogfish (Squalus acanthias).” (Fishermen Organized for Rational Dogfish Management letter to NOAA head Jane Lubchenco).

Since 1950 the annual Atlantic cod landings in all US ports exceeded 50,000 metric tons only in 1980, ‘82 and ‘83. In 2011 they were 7,900 mt.

–
If there was one rational step that could be taken to try to return the Atlantic cod stocks off our Northeastern coast to former levels, it’s hard to imagine anything with more of a likelihood of success than significantly cutting back the population of spiny dogfish. But this isn’t possible because if the spiny dogfish stock is not at a level that could produce the maximum sustainable yield it would be overfished – and thanks to the successful lobbying of the anti-fishing claque managed fish stocks can’t be overfished.

–
In the face of all of this it’s kind of hard to think that the federal fisheries management system has as a goal anything but the elimination of New England’s codfish fishermen. Otherwise, how could an alternative to further futile decreases in fishing for cod not be an increase in fishing for spiny dogfish? That would seem to be a rational action, wouldn’t it (and rest assured that spiny dogfish impact many more species than Atlantic cod).
But it’s not, and with the MSFCMA written and interpreted the way it is it can’t be.

–
But the spiny dogfish plague isn’t the only fly in the “blame it all on overfishing” ointment. There’s an explosion in the population of seals in New England coastal waters as well. With the ability – or more  accurately, with the need – to consume 6% of their body weight per day, the almost 16,000 gray seals off Cape Cod are consuming far more fish than Cape Cod’s recreational and commercial fishermen could ever hope to catch. If they aren’t competing directly with the fishermen for cod and striped bass and flounder they are competing indirectly by eating the prey species that the fishermen’s targeted species eat. For a succinct and fairly balanced examination of the developing Cape Cod seal crisis see Thriving in Cape Cod’s Waters, Gray Seals Draw Fans and Foes by Bess Bidgood in the NY Times on August 17th. And there are burgeoning populations of other marine mammals as well as cormorants, birds that are protected by the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act. They are all highly efficient predators on smaller fish.

–
The Act will be reauthorized this year. In the reauthorization, unless the managers are once again given the ability to use their judgment we won’t be able to most effectively manage our federal fisheries  to maximize the benefit we can derive from them. The Magnuson management process was designed to benefit from the knowledge that people in the fishing industry and marine scientists have gained through uncounted years of on-the-water experience in dealing with an environment that is as strange to the rest of us as outer space and a lot more complex. The benefits of  that knowledge have been lost to the process because of legislated changes by people who and organizations  that are sorely lacking in that hands-on experience and think that there is one answer to every fishery-related problem – to cut back on fishing. Without that changing, without discretion being returned to the managers, our fisheries will increasingly follow the trajectory that the New England groundfish fishery is on. None of us – except perhaps for the ENGOs and the foundations that support them – either want or can afford that. Magnuson must be amended. Flexibility, with adequate safeguards, to deal with situations like the current dogfish plague must be restored to the management process. Rationality demands it.

Comment Here

————————————————————————————————

Seafood certificat​ion – who’s really on first?

“Sustainability certification” has become a watchword of people in the so-called marine conservation community in recent years. However, their interest seems to transcend the determination of the actual sustainability of the methods employed to harvest particular species of finfish and shellfish and to use the certification process and the certifiers to advance either their own particular agendas or perhaps the agendas of those foundations that support them financially.
It doesn’t take an awful lot of sophisticated insight to recognize that a “sustainable” fishery is one that has been in operation in the past, is in operation presently, and will be in operation in the future. That’s what sustainability is all about – for lobsters, for fluke, for surfclams, for guavas, for hemp, for alpacas, in fact for anything that can be grown and/or harvested.

(Of course “marine conservationists” would have us believe that  a fishery that has a noticeable impact on the marine environment isn’t really sustainable. Imagine, if you can, a farm that has no environmental impact; in essence producing crops without interfering with the natural flora and fauna that “belong” there. That would get beef, cotton, soybeans, corn, mohair and what have you off the tables or out of the closets of perhaps 6 billion of the people who we share the world with, but if you are a committed marine conservationist, so what? The marine conservation community, and the foundations that support it, has been frighteningly successful in convincing people that  “sustainable fishing” is actually “no impact fishing,” but as we learned quite a few years ago, even hook and line fishermen catching one fish at a time can have a far from negligible environmental impact.)

Several recent events have increased the focus on sustainability and its use – or misuse – in attempts at influencing the buying  habits of the seafood consumers.

In the first of these, Walmart (the world’s largest retailer) now requires its fresh and frozen fish/seafood suppliers to “become third-party certified as sustainable using Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) or equivalent standards. By June 2012, all uncertified fisheries and aquaculture suppliers must be actively working toward certification.”

In the second, the National Park Service in the US Department of the Interior announced that all of its culinary operations “where seafood options are offered, provide only those that are ‘Best Choices’ or ‘Good Alternatives’ on the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch list, certified sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council, or identified by an equivalent program that has been approved by the NPS.” Senator Lisa Murkowski questioned Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis about this “recommendation” (the term he used) at an Energy and Natural Resources Committee. She asked whether NOAA (the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration) was involved in formulating this recommendation. He responded that he didn’t know. Senator Murkowski responded “NOAA is the agency that makes the determination in terms of what’s sustainable (as far as fisheries are concerned) within this country”

When considered in a vacuum these are both interesting comments on the importance that is being put on “sustainability” by fish/seafood providers, and is indicative of a positive trend by consumers who are increasingly demanding that the products they  buy are produced in an environmentally acceptable manner.

And the fact that a federal agency, the National Park Service, would demand – or as Director Jarvis waffled – would recommend  that its vendors provide only seafood certified sustainable by two non-governmental organizations while ignoring the de facto certification that is implicit in federally managed fisheries is not likely to surprise anyone with any familiarity with the morass that the federal bureaucracy has become. However, neither Walmart nor the US Department of the Interior exists or operates in a vacuum, and it seems as if there is a bit more at work here than is obvious.

The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is the largest international organization – headquartered in London – providing fish and seafood sustainability certification. It was started in 1996 as a joint effort of the World Wildlife Fund, a transnational ENGO, and Unilever a transnational provider of consumer goods.

The chart below lists recent grants to the MSC by the Walton Family Foundation and the David and Lucille Packard Foundation in recent years.

Grants to MSC from Walton Family Foundation
2007    $1,640,000
2007    $820,000
2008    $1,675,000
2009    $1,700,000
2009    $1,700,000
2010    $4,622,500
2011    $3,122,500
2012    $1,250,000
Total    $16,530,000
http://www.waltonfamilyfoundation.org/about/2009-grants            

Grants to MSC from David and Lucille Packard Foundation
2005    $1,750,000
2006    $1,500,000
2006    $100,000
2006    $87,900
2007    $1,500,000
2008    $1,506,000
2008    $250,000
2009    $4,050,000
2010    $125,000
2011    $1,900,000
2012    $250,000
2012    $550,000
2013    $250,000
Total    $13,818,900
http://www.packard.org/grants/grants-database/            

The Monterey Bay Aquarium was established with an initial grant of $55 million from David and Lucille Packard. Their daughter Julie is Vice Chairman of the Packard Foundation. She is also Executive Director and Vice Chair of the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Board of Trustees.

The MSC also lists the Resources Legacy Foundation as one of its supporters. The Resources Legacy Foundation has received $99 million from the Packard Foundation. One of its programs is the Sustainable Fisheries Fund, which along with its other activities provides funding ”reducing the financial hurdles confronting fishing interests that wish to adopt sustainable practices and potentially benefit from certification under MSC standards.”
According to CampaignMoney.com Ms. Packard donated $75,000 to the 2012 Obama Victory Fund.

In both of these initiatives NOAA/NMFS, the organization that provides virtually all of the data and other information that sustainability determinations are based on, that is required by  federal law to stop unsustainable fishing in federal waters, and that performs its own sustainability analyses on those fisheries, has been completely left out of the picture.

All things being equal, this could just be passed off as business – and government ineptitude – as usual. However, when tens of millions of dollars in donations by mega-foundations with “marine conservation” agendas that are looked at skeptically by so many in the fishing industry are thrown into the mix, should this be considered as just more business as usual or does it warrant a much closer look?

Comment here

———————————————————————————————-

Fisheries Management​–More Than Meets The Eye

Last year I wrote After 35 years of NOAA/NMFS fisheries management, how are they doing? How are we doing because of their efforts? (http://www.fishnet-usa.com/After        35 years of NOAA.pdf) I concluded with:

Our collective fisheries were never as badly off as grandstanding ENGOs convinced the public and our lawmakers that they were. Regardless of that, they are unquestionably in great shape now. Are the fishermen – the only people who have paid a price for that recovery – going to profit from it? At this point there aren’t a lot of indications that they are going to. Ill-conceived amendments to the Magnuson Act, the ongoing foundation-funded campaign to marginalize fishermen and to hold them victims of inadequate science, and a management regime that is focused solely on the health of the fish stocks and is indifferent to the plight of the fishermen effectively prevent that.

That having been a year ago, and statistics measuring the performance of our commercial fisheries for 2011 being available (http://www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/st1/commercial/landings/annual_landings.html), I thought I’d check back to see what, if anything, had changed.

Nationally, the total adjusted (to 2010 dollars) value of landings continued a gradual upswing that’s gone on intermittently since 2002/03. The post Magnuson (1976) low point in 2002 was under $4 billion, and by 2011 it had risen to over $5 billion, an increase of 35%. The adjusted value of the 2011 catch, $5.176 billion, was 76% of the highest total catch (in 1979) of $6.83 billion and 22%  above the average landings (from 1950 to 2011) of $4.25 billion.

All in all, the big picture is mostly positive. Unfortunately, the big picture is made up of a lot of smaller pictures, and some of them aren’t so good.

In the following chart I separated the value of the total landings in Alaska and the separate values of landings in American lobster, sea scallops and Southern shrimp (all species combined) from all other species.

For total value of landings in 2011 Alaska is at about 70% of where it was at its post Magnuson high ($1.84 billion vs $2.58 billion). Atlantic sea scallops were at their all-time record value ($485 million) and American lobster were at 89% of their all-time high ($405 million vs $456 million in 2005). Unfortunately the 2011 (Southern) shrimp landings were valued at only 34% of what they were at their highest ($472 million vs $1.333 billion in 1979).

In 1950 the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries reported landings of 223 distinct species or species groups (i.e. Shrimp, Dendrobranchiata  ). In 2011 the National Marine Fisheries Service reported landings of 460 species or species groups.
The 20 most valuable fisheries in 1950 and in 2011 and the percentage of their value to the total value of landings for that year are listed below:

In the Mid-Atlantic in 2011 the total value of landings, $220 million, were 79% of the highest landings value reported ($279 million in 1979). However, sea scallops made up more than half of the total landings value (56%, $143 million v. $114 million). While the overall picture looks positive, the value of the landings in the Mid-Atlantic minus the sea scallop production have been in a steady decline since the late 90s and are at the lowest point ever.

In New England the situation is comparable, but both American lobster and sea scallop production are responsible for the overall “healthy” appearance. There was a slight upswing in the value of the other fisheries in recent years but it appears that with the planned – and in part implemented – reductions in the groundfish TAC, it seems as if this slight upswing won’t carry over.

 

Conservation and management measures shall, consistent with the conservation requirements of this Act (including the prevention of overfishing and rebuilding of overfished stocks), take into account the importance of fishery resources to fishing communities in order to (A) provide for the sustained participation of such communities, and (B) to the extent practicable, minimize adverse economic impacts on such communities. National Standard #8, Magnuson-Steven Fisheries Conservation and Management Act (As amended through October 11, 1996).

A looming problem in both the Mid-Atlantic and New England is a pending cutback in the sea scallop quota for the next fishing year that at this point is expected to approach 40%. While the effects of a cut of this magnitude will obviously be significant to the scallop fleet, there will be not so obvious but potentially devastating effects on the other fisheries and on fishing communities as well.

A complex of ancillary businesses is required to operate a commercial fishing dock. These include vessel/equipment maintenance and repair facilities, ice plants, chandleries and shippers/truckers. Obviously it requires a certain level of business – a minimum amount of revenue coming “across the dock” –  for them to stay open. In the Mid-Atlantic a 40% cut in scallop revenues will be more than a 20% cut in commercial fishing revenues in a single year. In New England it will be somewhat less than that, but it will be combined with whatever additional cuts result from the proposed groundfish cuts.

I’m not that familiar with all of the fishing ports in the Mid-Atlantic and New England but have a fairly good understanding of those in New Jersey, and in New Jersey there isn’t one commercial port that lands fish from the ocean-going fleet that is mostly – or even largely – focused on scallops. They all handle a mix of fish and shellfish. A large part of their longevity is due to the fact that they have maintained a reasonable amount of flexibility thanks to their diverse fleets. But a drastic cutback in scallop revenues, particularly if it is coupled with the continuing decline in the revenues from other fisheries, will threaten that longevity.

The proposed scallop cutback has been presented as a temporary  measure, and the Fisheries Survival Fund – representing the majority of limited access scallop fishermen in New England and the Mid-Atlantic and other industry groups are working to ameliorate the proposed cuts, but when it comes to businesses that are waterfront dependent a two year temporary reduction could easily become permanent before the cutbacks are restored. Except for the lull over the past several years there have been intense development pressures at the Jersey Shore and on most of the waterfront areas from Cape Hatteras North. It’s just about assured that they will be back to their customary levels very shortly.

Originally the Magnuson Act placed much more emphasis on business- and community-supportive aspects of federal fisheries management. Those aspects have been eroded by the lobbying activities of the handful of ENGOs that have come to dominate the world of fisheries/oceans activism. They, and for the most part NOAA/NMFS  as well, address fish issues on a case by case, species by species basis. More importantly, the people at NOAA/NMFS tend to shy away from cumulative economic impacts when they have analyses done, and cumulative impacts are what most of the commercial fishermen, the people who depend on them and the businesses they support have to deal with – and in New England and the Mid-Atlantic (at least, and this isn’t to slight the industry elsewhere, because I doubt that it’s different in many other ports) in spite of increasing total landings value, it could be getting a lot worse really soon.

Comment here

———————————————————————————————————————–

A staggering loss to U.S. fishermen and U.S. seafood consumers.

Nils E.Stolpe  FishNet USA/June 26, 2013

 It was back in June of 2008 that I first became aware of Richard Gaines’ work in the Gloucester Times in a three part series exploring the interplay between fishermen, feds, ENGOs and the mega-foundations that funded them in a controversial move to close Stellwagen Bank to fishing (see http://tinyurl.com/n8m3voh for the first installment). A letter about the series I wrote to Times Editor Ray Lamont started “kudos to Richard Gaines for reporting what is going on behind the smoke and mirrors obscuring the struggle to maintain the historical fisheries that have thrived on Stellwagan Bank for generations. He couldn’t be more on-target when writing ‘Pew is associated with public information campaigns against fishing and fish consumption.’”

This started a friendship between Richard and me that, I was amazed to discover, had lasted for less than five years. I know it enriched my life. I can only hope it enriched my writing as well.

Returning from a business trip on Sunday, June 9, Nancy Gaines found her husband Richard dead of an apparent heart attack at their home just outside of Gloucester.

Richard was a journalist’s journalist. Unlike the average “reporter” covering fisheries/ocean issues today, he gave press releases – and the contacts they provide – the minimal initial credence that they generally deserve. He was always looking for the story behind the press release and with a combination of integrity, skill and tenacity he usually found it. In five years he developed a surprisingly sophisticated understanding of what has become a cumbersomely complex federal fisheries management process – and of the political machinations behind it. Whether it was about the multi-billion dollar foundations behind the environmental activist organizations that have become so adept at making life miserable for fishermen, or a federal fisheries enforcement establishment that was allowed to enrich itself with tens of millions of dollars coerced from the fishing industry, Richard was covering it, covering it thoroughly and covering it well.

It’s going to be harder on all of us because he’s no longer there to do it.

Richard was memorialized fittingly by Ray Lamont in Community, industry mourn loss of a champion at http://preview.tinyurl.com/mmjbuae, North Carolina Congressman Walter Jones honored him with a statement to the U.S. House of Representatives available in the Congressional Record (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r113:E12JN3-0009:/ and I can’t add much to what they and dozens of other folks have written in the last week other than offering his wife Nancy, his family and coworkers my deepest sympathy. And I’d suggest that after reading this you spend a few minutes watching an interview of Richard done by Good Morning Gloucester at http://preview.tinyurl.com/lg8ohll. If you weren’t lucky enough to know him this will tell you much of what you should know about him and his work.

And while on the subject of press releases….

“The Attorney General is wrong on the law and she is wrong on the facts,” said Peter Shelley, senior counsel with CLF, who has been actively engaged in fisheries management for more than 20 years. “Political interference like this action by Attorney General Coakley has been a leading cause of the destruction of these fisheries over the past twenty years, harassing fishery managers to ignore the best science available….We need responsible management which includes habitat protection and a suspension of directed commercial and recreational fishing for cod. We also need some serious leadership from our elected officials. Going to court or getting up on a political soapbox will not magically create more fish.” (from a Conservation Law Foundation press release on May 31.”

It’s kind of hard to believe that just about immediately after this press release went out the  Conservation Law Foundation – along with the Pew spawned Earthjustice (recipient of some $20 million from the Pew Charitable Trusts) – filed suit in federal court to prevent NOAA from cutting the groundfish fishermen the tiniest bit of slack, perhaps allowing more of them to survive a largely management manufactured slump. It seems that in the release Mr. Shelley must have meant “other people going to court or getting up on a political soapbox will not magically create more fish. However if  it’s me or my foundation funded buds going to court, watch out ‘cause those fish will shortly be on the way.”

I usually stay away from New England issues because my colleagues up there are more than capable – in spite of the gross inequities resulting from the mega-foundation mega-buck funding of organizations like the Conservation Law Foundation and Earthjustice – of representing their own interests. However I couldn’t sit back and not comment on the CLF position voiced by Peter Shelley in an article, Conservation group sues NOAA to block openings, byRichard Gaines on June 6.

Explaining how the CLF/Earthjustice position wasn’t hypocritical, Mr. Shelley explained “the distinction for me is that I have seen time and time again when politicians — in this case the attorney general — hasn’t participated in the (fisheries management) process, and then comes in to try to influence the process in litigation. They’re not taking a legal position, there’s not much there except politics.”(http://preview.tinyurl.com/mnzgsnu).

To suggest that this is a more than slightly puzzling statement for an attorney to make would be an understatement. Mr. Shelley must believe – or must want other people to believe – that Attorney General Coakley was acting on her own when filing the suit. Apparently he believes – or wants us to believe – that because she has never personally participated in the fishery management process her suit has no merit. He is and has been, it would seem, in attendance at many meetings in New England at which fish are discussed and it appears as if in his view this makes his suit de facto righteous and hers nothing more than political posturing.

Massachusetts  Attorney General hasn’t participated in fisheries management?

Let’s examine his contention that the Massachusetts Attorney General hasn’t participated in the (fisheries management) process in a little more depth. First off, I doubt very much that Attorney General Coakley  brought the suit on her own behalf. In fact, I’d bet dollars to donuts that she brought it on behalf of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Even Mr. Shelley must know that the Commonwealth, via a succession of capable and effective representatives, has for at least the last forty or so years participated heavily in federal fisheries management via the Magnuson Fisheries Conservation and Management Act. Either Paul Diodati, Director of the Commonwealth’s Division of Marine Fisheries, or David Pierce, the Deputy Director, are at every meeting of the New England Fishery Management Council and Dr. Pierce is a member of that Council’s Groundfish Committee (as well as its Herring, Sea Scallop and ad hoc Sturgeon Committees and the Mid-Atlantic council’s Dogfish and Herring Committees). Mr. Diodati is also the Chairman of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and the Co-Director of the Massachusetts Marine Fisheries Institute. They aren’t on these bodies on their own behalf either. They are there representing the Commonwealth as well. And before they were there, their predecessors were, and they were just as deeply involved.

This commitment to and participation in the fisheries management process by the various representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts began long before Mr. Shelley, the CLF and the Pew Trusts discovered each other. The Commonwealth, as represented in the current suit by the Attorney General whose participation Mr. Shelley seems so intent in marginalizing, established its bona fides in fisheries management at least a century ago (and will hopefully remain involved far beyond the point when Mr. Shelley, the CLF and Pew move on to “greener” pastures).

In fact the groundfish management measures that Mr.Shelley’s justifiable (in his estimation) suit is aimed at were a work product of the New England Fisheries Management Council, an institution which was established by the Magnuson Act in 1976 that has been in continuous operation – with overlapping changes in membership and administration –  since then. And in spite of Mr. Shelley’s so apparent disagreement with this fact, the Council is mandated by the Act to manage for the benefit of the fish, the fishermen and the fishing communities. The Council members voted by an over 75% majority (13 to 3) to support the measures that Mr. Shelley et al are now going to court – of course in a non-political fashion – to prevent. As opposed to Mr. Shelley’s “more than twenty years” trumpeted in the CLF press release,how many hundreds of years of collective fisheries science and management experience do the Council members and staff possess? How many collective years of management experience do the Council members whose votes Mr. Shelley and his pals are going to court to nullify have.

Evidently it isn’t fisheries management experience that Mr. Shelley finds so valuable. It’s whose management experience that matters.

These are the people, the agencies, the institutions, the experience and the actions behind the Commonwealth’s lawsuit – the one that Mr. Shelley wants us to believe is based on nothing more than “political posturing.”

And what of the constituencies being represented? Attorney General Coakley’s constituency is made up in large part of Massachusetts fishermen, all of those people, families and businesses that depend on them, all of the Commonwealth’s consumers who, apparently unlike Mr. Shelley et al, realize that a seafood dinner should involve something more satisfying and wholesome than a several-times-frozen lump of imported shrimp, tilapia or swai, and all of them, and us, who seriously appreciate fishing traditions going back to colonial times.

On the other hand, from what I’ve been able to discover (see http://www.fishtruth.net), Mr. Shelley’s, CLF’s and Earthjustice’s “constituents” are a handful of mega-foundations and well-to-do-donors, and I’d imagine a lot of internet “click here if you don’t like fishermen or fishing” residents of anywhere (but I’ll again bet those same dollars to those same donuts that very few of them are in coastal Massachusetts).

So few groundfish?

Then Mr.Shelley brings up what he wants us to consider the “fact” that there are so few groundfish available to the fishermen that they are no longer filling their annual quotas. To the uninformed (those “click here” constituents, for example) this probably seems a compelling argument for shutting down the fisheries, Mr. Shelley’s often stated goal. It must make sense to many people who are unfamiliar with our modern fisheries “management” regime as it has been distorted by lobbying by environmental activist organizations like CLF. In fact, however, there are other and much more believable causes of uncaught quota than not enough fish.

The first of these would be the existence of so-called “choke” species. Much more valuable fisheries can be shut down because of unavoidable bycatch of other species with much lower quotas. Take the situation in which two species – the targeted species and the “choke” species – are inextricably mixed during part of the fishing year. Fishermen, tending to be rational even when dealing with an irrational system such as the one that Mr. Shelley and his cronies have built, will avoid the target species in spite of its abundance because they know full well that when the catch limit for the “choke” species is reached both  fisheries will be shut down. In essence they are leaving the uncaught quota “in the bank” for later harvest. Needless to say, that later harvest isn’t guaranteed and it’s easy to imagine that in many instances it remains uncaught.

Then there are the meager trip limits for some stocks. Catch shares or not, in instances it just isn’t worth it for some fishermen to run their boats offshore for a few hundreds of pounds – or less – of fish. They’ll remain tied to the dock or will target other species with quotas that will allow them more income.

And we can’t forget low prices at the dock. Fish markets have adjusted to the recent vast swings in supply of some of the traditional species (a testament to the lack of effectiveness of our fisheries management system) by switching to alternative products. With the most productive fishing grounds in the world in our EEZ it’s hard to imagine that tilapia is the most heavily consumed finfish in the U.S., but it is. Compensating for these often low prices is a large part of the reason for the development of alternative markets for our domestic fisheries, but it’s somewhere between extremely difficult and impossible to move large quantities of fish in small lots.

Then there’s the impact of changing environmental conditions on the traditional availability of species, Said most simply, fish aren’t necessarily where they have been found by fishermen for generations. Though Mr. Shelley apparently want you to think that means they’re not there at all, that’s not necessarily so. Fish stocks are dependent on water temperatures, as are the critters they feed on, and water temperatures have been changing significantly in recent years. Some areas that used to reliably produce a particular species of fish at a particular time of the year no longer do so. With the meager quotas and the continually increasing costs of running a boat a fisherman isn’t as likely to search for where the water temperature changes have driven the fish. Economics won’t allow it.

Additionally, fish surveys are operated as if our U.S. coastal waters exist in a steady state; that conditions today  are as they were when the survey was started. The same spots are sampled at the same time every year, and when a particular species is no longer  taken in the sample or is taken in reduced numbers, the automatic assumption is that fishing is the cause of “the problem” and that reducing or curtailing (ala Mr. Shelley) fishing is the solution. Compounding the real problem, the reduced availability of research funds, the probability of extending the scope of the surveys is pretty low.

In a follow-up article on June 10, Shelley elaborated that the suit filed by Attorney General Coakley was “political ‘soapbox’ posturing” while“our suits are not political… they’re strictly based on the facts, and we do it as a last resort”(http://preview.tinyurl.com/mysrlbz).

Attorney General Coakley, Governor Patrick et al, please keep on keeping on. Effective fisheries management should involve much more than happy fish and happy ENGOs. When Congress passed the Magnuson Act in 1976 the Members realized this and it’s about time that the pendulum gets pushed back in the direction that it was intended to swing in. Fish count, but so do fishermen, fishing communities and seafood consumers. If the U.S. fishing industry is to survive, the initial balance that was amended out of the Act by intensive lobbying by foundation funded activists claiming to represent the public must be restored.

For more information on Shelley’s/the Conservation Law Foundation/Earthjustice lawsuit see Conservation Law Foundation & Earthjustice Make Unfounded Claims in Lawsuit Filing   at http://preview.tinyurl.com/pwaaabu.

…………………………………..

For those of you who were interested in the FishNet piece (available at http://www.fishnet-usa.com/Bluefin tuna and Pew.pdf ) on the ongoing attempts by the Pew Trusts, one of Mr. Shelley’s benefactors, to steer the Bluefin tuna management meeting this week in Montreal, the critique of the claims of the Pew people attempting the steering are available on the Saving Seafood website at http://preview.tinyurl.com/nc59z3q. I’d suggest that you take the time to read it and the Saving Seafood special report on Bluefin tuna at http://preview.tinyurl.com/ojo5jne.

———————————————————————————————————————-

FishNet – USA/June 24, 2013         Nils E. Stolpe

On August 13, 1997 Josh Reichert, then Director of the Pew Trusts Environment Program and now Executive Vice President of the Trusts, in an op-ed column in the Philadelphia Inquirer titled Swordfish technique depletes the swordfish population wrote “the root problem is not only the size of the (swordfish) quota, the length of the season, or the  number of vessels involved. It is how the fish are caught…. Use of longlines must be barred…. the fishery should be open to all – provided that swordfish are caught with hand gear, including harpoons and rod and reel. No swordfish should be taken until it has a chance to breed at least once, meaning that the minimum allowable catch size should be no less than 100 pounds. Such measures…. would put the  Atlantic swordfish population back on the road to recovery.

” http://articles.philly.com/1997-08-13/news/25567968_1_swordfish-big-fish-commercial-long-liners

In what has become typical Pew style, Mr. Reichert’s article was just a small piece of a frightfully well-funded campaign to “save the swordfish” from the depredations of the U.S. pelagic longline  fleet. Involving scientists who had been willing riders on the  Pew funding gravy train, enlisting restaurateurs into the campaign who hadn’t the foggiest idea what swordfishing or pelagic longlining was all about, and using the formidable Pew media machine which had earned its legitimacy with tens of millions of dollars in grants to journalism schools and broadcast outlets, Mr. Reichert and his minions set out to destroy an entire fishery and the lives of the thousands of hard working Americans who depended on it.

This could have dealt a devastating blow to the U.S. longline fleet. Exacerbating a bad situation, it would have also resulted in the transfer of the uncaught quota from the strictly regulated U.S. boats to other vessels whose regulation was much less rigorous. Without question removal of the U.S. longline fleet would have had a negative impact on swordfish conservation.

Fortunately a swordfish management program to reduce fishing effort to where it was in balance with the resource had been put in place by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) years before Mr. Reichert and Pew “discovered” swordfish. By the time the Pew people and the Pew dollars entered the fray this program was already paying obvious conservation dividends. Then a closure of swordfish nursery areas off Florida, a closure which was supported by the U.S. longline fleet, was also put in place. This assured the recovery of the swordfish stock in the Western North Atlantic.

This was a testament to fisheries management based on sound science, not on media hype only affordable by multi-billion dollar corporations and foundations.  In spite of self-serving claims to the contrary, the Pew peoples’ prodigious yet misguided efforts to scuttle the pelagic longline fleet – and their obvious lack of understanding of swordfish management – changed virtually nothing about the fishery or about how it was being managed.

But what has changed in the intervening years is the way in which the rest of the (non-Pew) world looks at pelagic longlining in general and the U.S. pelagic longline fleet in particular. Thanks to significant efforts by the U.S. participants  in this fishery, they have become the undisputed world leaders in developing and implementing fishing gear and fishing techniques to drastically reduce or eliminate the incidence of bycatch in their fishery. And despite Mr. Reichert’s dire predictions and those of Pew’s stable of scientists, the doom and gloom predicted for swordfish if longlining was allowed to continue never developed. Today, as the pelagic longline fishery continues, the swordfish stock is fully rebuilt. In fact, the fishery is in such good shape that it was recently certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council.

So now Bluefin tuna     

To quote the inimitable Yogi Berra, “it’s déjà vu all over again.” Fifteen years later the same cast of characters and the same organizations are using the same tired and ineffective strategy funded by the same sources to derail the management of another highly migratory fish species, the Atlantic bluefin tuna (ABT).

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), the same body that is responsible  for swordfish management in the Atlantic, is holding a meeting of fisheries scientists and managers in Montreal at the end of this month to review the ABT stock assessment. The outcome of this review will have much to do with determining what the total allowable catch (TAC) of these valuable fish will be in the coming years. The TAC is divided between rereational fishermen, rod and reel commercial fishermen, harpooners, purse seiners (currently none are in the U.S. fishery) and pelagic longliners (who don’t target ABT but do take some incidentally).

While the public’s view of the value of these fish has been purposely distorted – each year one fish, supposedly the first and the best of the year, is sold at a Japanese auction for hundreds of thousands of dollars as a marketing ploy – they      are valuable, with a prime fish bringing thousands of dollars (the National Geographic Channel offers a largely accurate portrayal of the rod and reel ABT fishery in its series Wicked Tuna).

In what is no surprise to anyone with even a nodding acquaintance with fisheries management issues, the folks at Pew have mounted yet another well-funded campaign to influence the outcome of this ICCAT assessment review. They are using the same flashy and expensive techniques and have enlisted a similar claque of experts to “save the tuna” as they used in the late 90’s to save the swordfish.

As was so convincingly  demonstrated by the complete recovery of the swordfish stocks in spite of continued harvesting by the longline fleet, Pew science as voiced by Pew scientists was then far from the last word in the world of  fisheries      management. That hasn’t changed. Nor has their strategy. The same hackneyed messages of doom and gloom by the same overwrought scientists are presented as if they represent the main stream of fisheries research.

Rather than being swayed by their efforts to make the playing field at the upcoming meeting in Montreal as uneven  as the billions of dollars backing them up will allow, it’s crucial that the independent science as espoused by the independent scientists speak for itself.

As with swordfish almost a generation ago, we trust that the scientists and managers in Montreal this week will not be swayed by all of the hyperbole that they will find aimed directly at them, will evaluate the existing science for what it is, not for what the Pew people will try to tell them it is, and make decisions that are right for the fish and right for the fishermen.

We should note here that there seems to be no limit to what the people at the Pew Trusts will spend in their attempts to convince anyone who will listen to reduce or eliminate fishing but when it comes to investing even negligible resources into efforts to more accurately and extensively sample the fish stocks they seem so intent on saving, something that everyone agrees is necessary for more effective management, they seem singularly uninterested.

Comment here

A Pathetic Joke Reaffirm’s that some Politicians are Clueless

So. I’m sitting here listening to the Webinar/phone meeting that has just ended, approximately 1 hour and 25 minutes early!

Can’t even imagine holding a webinar session with no sound, but, heh, that’s our government for ya!

If I wanted to listen, (I did) I needed to tie up my telephone! I did!

There were probably twenty five listeners, and three or four asked question’s.

Earlier in the week, Senator Warren wrote an op – ed piece about the $10 Million in S-K dough NOAA was gonna “grant” back to the industry.

Guest View: Tide begins turning fishermen’s way

For the past two years, I have made many visits to Massachusetts fishing communities in New Bedford, Gloucester and the South Shore to hear about the challenges facing the industry. I’ve listened to boat owners and fishermen who face devastating catch allocation cuts, and I’ve spoken with net makers and icemen whose businesses depend on a strong fishing fleet to make ends meet. The message I’ve heard has been clear:

The truth is, she didn’t get it, and there are a few poli bum kisser’s (they know who they are) that trumpet her message as progress, instead of leaning in hard and making her get it.

Ray Lamont at the Gloucester Daily Times is not one of them.

Editorial: Fishing aid package far short of even basic needs

She did replace someone that did get it, and I’d bet Scott Brown would never patronize the fishermen he stood up for.

That’s all that op-ed was. Patronization of the desperate.

Grant is the key word here, and no clue when it comes to Liz Warren!

Today’s display of the S-K funding Folly was revealing to say the least.

Let the Competition Begin!

The guest list had nary a fisherman that needs relief attending the session, but plenty of professional grant hounds, with a few amateurs thrown in.

Today’s exercise was another example of fishermen getting the shit end of the stick.

 

 

Comment here

 

The Pew Charitable Trusts says Atlantic cod stocks are at “perilously low  levels,” and suggested that even the best fishing boat captains in the fleet  couldn’t find enough cod during the last fishing season to meet match their  quotas.

Pew also said the same law being used to replenish the ground fish stocks was  successful in rebuilding the scallop fishery, keeping New England fishing  revenue strong.

“The cod population is clearly in free fall, and if we over fish then we may  push them into extinction,” said Jeff Young, a spokesman for The Pew Charitable  Trusts.

“Even if we could find that flexibility, we really have to rebuild these  fisheries,” Bullard said. “That takes very painful measures to cut back these  stocks and that’s what we’re going to do.”

——————————————————————————————————————————-

Just chop the vegetables and shut up, will ya?

Chef Holly Smith of Café Juanita in Kirkland is one of dozens of local chefs that have joined “Chefs for Seals,” part of the Humane

Society of the United States’ Protect Seals Campaign. 

What is it about these chefs that makes them think the seals are going to support them as they serve up tilapia and Asian farm raised shrimp?

The seals will not tolerate eating that crap, no matter how hard the cook try’s to mask that swill.

Even seals have standards!

I realize that parody may offend the chefs but, shrugs, who care’s?

The Humane Society of the United States’ Protect Seals Campaign., and the chefs, who appear to be snobby towards people, and prefer to raise an issue strictly based on vanity, and decorative icon’s.

If the chefs are doing this to take a stand, why won’t they take a stand against world hunger?!

As the new trend in fishery management is eco based management, the seals cannot be removed from the equation. They are now a primary predator in the eco system because of a number of reasons, one in the United States being the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and another being the un palatable appeal of environs, pro and amateur, and the anti fur movement.

I know that the idea of eco based management will appeal to them in the spirit of being “in tune” with the eco system.

It will be interesting to watch them try to separate a top predator in the eco based management system in the name of vanity, because this is apparently what they have taken a stand against, to the point of a boycott of Canadian fish products.

They will now be forced to accept the fact that seals will be on the menu, as there is an over abundance of this resource having a detrimental affect on other species in the eco system.

To focus on fur products and ignore the protein that seals would provide, utilized by the hungry people of planet that don’t get enough of it will expose the chefs as just trendy interlopers looking for attention or humanitarians toward their fellow human beings.

Comment here

————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

The contentious issue of seals, marine mammal population’s and public comment ignorance.

Posting link’s to story’s for fisherynation.com viewer’s today, and over the past few day’s, some issues stand out and I thought I’d address them. These are my opinion’s, and mine only.

If you agree, or disagree, you have an opportunity to present your opinion. Submit them through the contact, located on the blue menu bar, and they will be featured. Keep it civil, and on point, please, with no insults or vulgar language.

During the week, I posted three articles about “Study shows depleted fish stocks can come back from the brink”, with the claim cod will never recover in Canada because there are no management measures in Canada to foster a recovery, and besides, it’s to late for them.

Two articles contained the doom and gloom analysis of fisheries scientist Jeffrey Hutchings at Dalhousie University.

In two articles, it appears the authors who interviewed Mr. Hutchings were content to accept his opinion without questioning of any other factors related to the cod issue. These were “blame the fishermen”, ignore the problem’s forums.

The third article posted about the study, appeared at Pys.org.

It was like I had never read the first two!

I am used o the articles that are pointed. with the fisheries being the only factor when it comes to fish stock’s, even though I suspect it’s more complicated, but almost simple enough for me to understand.

Why is it that the scientist’s, and the environmentalists choose to ignore the thing’s we can control to increase cod stock’s in the North Atlantic, east and west? They can’t be in denial forever, and they will be forced to deal with reality if they want to eat fish, or if the fishing industry is going to survive.

We are on this sustainability thing, right?

Marine Mammals are increasing in numbers that are now detrimental to the fish stock’s we prefer to see the populations of, increase.

There are seal issues along the Western Atlantic, and on the East Atlantic, also.

Alaska with the exploding populations of Sea Otter’s is having problem’s, getting the Wanted – “Dead or Alive” posters ready.

They too are having a negative effect on species we desire to harvest and consume.

The population has doubled in the last decade which would mean it would double again in five years.

These stock’s and various species provide livelihoods that are even further in jeopardy if these issues continue unabated.

We will discuss the other predatory species of cod herring, dogfish skates and lobster another time.

An interesting event occurred in American Samoa regarding a predatory specie, and three US Government agencies, decided that eradication was worth implementing as the Crown-of-Thorn starfish became a threat to coral, and it was decide euthanasia was the only option. This is a precedent setting event.

A predatory species is predatory species, whether it’s a starfish or a marine mammal.

The comments at the article “EU ban on trade in seal fur set to be overturned” – European court expected to back attempt by pelt traders and sporran makers to reverse 2010 ruling, are a good indication of the general publics’ opinion.

What they tell me is, these people, all of them food consumers, have no sense of the gritty reality of food production, or, life in general.

These are the people that would say eat more chicken, or just vegetable’s, but if they invested 25 minutes into Ray Hilborn, and they were honest, they’d realize fish consumption in a burgeoning human population cannot be replaced. It’s irreplaceable!

The basis for the opposition to harvesting marine mammals is shallow.

To them, it’s about human vanity. Why else would the headline focus on fur and sporrans?

All I see is references to outrage over vanity,

No outrage for the people in Nambia that eat these seals to survive, as the Seals of Nam’s group threatens Adventure Travel and Trade Association (for the upcoming travel summit in Namibia in October); the Namibian embassy in the United States; the Henties Bay municipality; Namibian Ombudsman John Walters; the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources; and numerous other businesses, travel agencies,” to further their shallow campaign.

I really doubt the African nation of Nambia, or it’s hungry people care about the fur, or even sporrans for that matter, but leave it up to people that have warped senses of purpose to threaten a country of poor people by holding back “tourist” dollars!

Based on,,,,,ideology?

Let’s talk about cruelty!

EU ban on trade in seal fur set to be overturned

Namibia: Seal Campaigners Continue With Harvest Protest

Stopping spread of crown of thorns is to kill it

Draft SE otter population assessment out

 “Canada’s cod, and many other depleted fish, unlikely to recover”

“Study offers bleak outlook for fish recovery” 

Study shows depleted fish stocks can come back from the brink

Comment here

———————————————————————————————————————————

NOAA Fisheries Service? No such agency!

First off, I’m a cranky old person.

I wasn’t always like this, but time and events have taken their toll.

I’m not ready for the dirt sandwich, although, ya never know!

For quite a while now, something has really been bugging me, and it has nothing to do with my crotchetiness.

NOAA, and the National Marine Fishery Service have pulled a MMS.

Recall before Deep Water Horizon, the agency overseeing the offshore drilling operations were under the MMS moniker

Following revelations of cozy industry / agency interactions of lewd behavior, the administration abandoned MMS and changed it to BOEM, trying to erase it’s shameful past.

I guess strippers, drinking bashes and cocaine abuse between regulators and industry had something to do with that if I recall correctly.

In NOAA’s case, the shameful OLE debacle of NMFS must have had the same affect.

It appears NOAA is ashamed of the National Marine Fishery Service name, and avoid using it when ever possible.

They can’t though, and every time I get information about anything, it is communicated through an un official agency called NOAA Fisheries Service, an agency that does not exist!

Looking at the attractive logo, and the ease of pronouncing NOAA Fisheries, it reminds me of slick tobacco packaging.

You know, pretty colors with attractive font’s and graphics, hiding the negative impacts, or in some cases , death from it’s use.

I wanted to know when the official transition had taken place, because they have websites all over the place with the “un official” logo and non name, and as close as I’ve become to them, I didn’t recall any notices about it.

I made an inquiry.

On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 1:45 PM,  <[email protected]> wrote:

I would be interested in seeing the official documentation regarding the shift to the title “NOAA Fisheries Service”Thank you.

I received this.

from: Allison McHale – NOAA Federal <[email protected]>

to: [email protected]

cc: Paul Jones – NOAA Federal <[email protected] _mce_keep=”true”>

date: Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 5:24 PM

subject: Re: inquiry

 Important mainly because of the words in the message.

Our official name is still the National Marine Fisheries Service.  NOAA Fisheries Service or NOAA Fisheries has for many many years been our common use name since we are the fisheries part of NOAA.

Thank you, Allison, for the response. I appreciate that. BH

I knew that the official name is still National Marine Fisheries service because every time I get a notice with the fancy logo, directly below, it usually announces, “The National Marine Fisheries Service” today,,,” You get it.

With sequestration causing the agency to shut down, yes shut down – The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration plans to shut down most agency operations for four mandatory furlough days in July and August in response to sequester-related budget cuts, according to the agency’s acting chief. continued!, I can’t help but to wonder how much money has been spent on converting all the websites, all the stationary, all the everything’s it has been un officially attached to.

That’s one thing cranky old people do. Bitch about the cost.

Comments can be made here

—————————————————————————————————————————————-

As grim fishing year approaches, industry tries to deal with new catch limits

BOSTON –  Deep cuts in catch limits will  hit New England’s fishing fleet in less than three weeks, and there’s little  hint any real relief is coming. But regulators and fishermen are still seeking  ways to lessen a blow fishermen warn will finish them off.

As time grows short, Gloucester’s Al Cottone said he and his fellow fishermen  seem to be facing the future in a sort of “state of shock.”

“Everyone’s in denial. They still think, you know, someone’s going to come in on  their white horse and save us,” he said.

“What are people doing to help the industry?”

I’ve tried to mount up and be a rider. I have not been successful.

What I see is herds of black horses being ridden by hypocritical green cowboys riding rough shod over a bunch of un organized fishermen, manipulating natural phenomena, and cherry picking snippets of information to further the cause of the anti fishing conservation groups.

I’ve watched an endless parade of politicians exclaim they would do everything possible to preserve a 400 year old industry that’s reputation has been skewed by a well organized highly financed special interest sector that operates as an army of non profit, tax deductible lawyer assholes who believe they have all the answers. To everything.

Which leads to this.

Plan to open no-fishing zones faces opposition

Allowing commercial fishing in closed areas would bring stocks even closer to ruin, said John Crawford, science and policy manager for the Northeast Fisheries Program of the Pew Charitable Trusts, which is spearheading an effort to slow down NOAA’s approval process long enough to ensure that in-depth environmental impact studies will be done. More than 70,000 residents up and down the Atlantic Coast and 100 scientists have expressed opposition to the plan in comments to NOAA.

“The habitat has to be protected,” Crawford said. “This is the opposite response of what a rational person would have.”

That’s seventy thousand progressives that had nothing better to do than respond to a mega campaign staged by Pew, and  CLF non profit, tax deductible, NOAA insider Peter Shelley, and his for Cods Sake appeal where he ignores facts about the Cod Stocks, as in like, they move?

The big mystery has been solved by an old fisherman in Newfoundland, and he has the answer about where the cod went. His back yard!

Hasn’t seen fishing like this in almost fifty years!

Of course, Shelley’s in denial, and would rather utilize the short comings of the fishery “science”.

“The habitat has to be protected,”

Unless Crawford opposes offshore wind farms along the New England coast, he should keep his Pew mouth shut.

Your View: Polluter blockade of New Bedford wind jobs finally falling

The senior communications manager for the National Wildlife Federation decided he should communicate his feelings about his support of habitat destruction.

Ocean Industrialization is exactly that. Habitat destruction.

I realize Miles Grant, another green energy, crony envirocapitalist, thinks he knows what’s best for the planet, but that’s only because as a communicator, he’s not a listener, or a researcher, because if he were, he would clam up and oppose the destruction caused by pile driving, cable trenching, and chemical spills associated with the construction he endorses.

His masterpiece of hypocrisy is literary pollution in it’s purest form.

Same with Peter Shelley. I’m quite sure he’s a Cape Wind rah rah kinda guy.

I know his boss is!

Which lead’s to this.

Meet John Kassel CLF President / Cape Wind Shill / Advocate of Ocean Destruction, and a crappy blogger, too.

Also included in his article,

Just as there is no doubt that our oceans are treasures, so too is there no doubt that they are being damaged. Bottom trawlers damage huge swaths of the ocean floor with their heavy chains, doors and dredges, likened by some scientists to a bulldozer scraping the delicate floor of a pristine forest. New England’s oceans are rising much faster than predicted. They are also becoming more acidic from harmful greenhouse gas emissions. Recent record increases in precipitation may even be fundamentally altering plankton production, jeopardizing the very productivity of our marine web of life.

As it stands, the commentary of ocean acidification is a legitimate argument.

As far as fundamentally altering plankton production, Kassel mentions nothing of pollution, like estrogen, and chemicals flushed through our bodies being injected into the ecosystem via sewerage treatment, which also have negative affects.

He does hammer away at the fishing industry’s methods of modern day harvesting methods that he finds unpalatable.

I will argue, the notion is unfounded, while he bulldozes his Cape Wind preference as a harmless project that with just the right amount of pixie dust sprinkled on it, will deliver energy to New England with no environmental consequence!

11 years. That’s how long we’ve been waiting for the promise of Cape Wind: clean, renewable energy; new, green jobs; reduced air emissions and carbon pollution; energy at a predictable price over the long-term; and energy security. At a time when the evidence of global warming is overwhelming, and the need for jobs critical, unleashing the potential of this home-grown offshore wind project can only be a good thing.

Now this is rhetorical hyperbole at its finest!

I wrote that on Oct 4, 2012

I posted this on April 14,2013

Which lead’s to this.

Noise Pollution from an Ocean Idustrialization Shill

Your View: Polluter blockade of New Bedford wind jobs finally falling, Miles Grant lives in New Bedford and is senior communications manager for the National Wildlife Federation. Offshore wind energy can and must be developed in a wildlife-friendly manner. Plenty of baloney in this guys display case! Read it here.

Miles Grant’s article has an uncanny familiarity to it. Like it reads like Kassel’s!

Barbara Durkin tie’s this up this loose end nicely.

Which lead’s to this.

BARBARA DURKIN – Your View: Cape Wind offers only empty promises so far. Spanks the communications manager of National Wildlife Federation

April 16, 2013              ENGO, Letter to the Editor, New England, Offshore Wind/Industrialization

Her response to this drivel.  Your View: Polluter blockade of New Bedford wind jobs finally falling continued

NWF makes jobs claims on behalf of Cape Wind that are unfounded. For 22 months, from April 1, 2011, to Dec. 31, 2012, the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center Wind Technology Testing Center has created zero jobs, according to the federal government’s Recovery Tracker. The MACEC ratepayer surcharge program is the source of the $13.2 million used to develop the testing center. The center also received a $2 million DOE grant, and funding by U.S. taxpayers through ARRA stimulus of $24.7 million. We have no jobs to show for our $40 million spent. continued

Supporting article by Menakhem Ben-Yami  https://fisherynation.com/battlefrontoffshore-wind-industrialization

Nothing will destroy habitat like ocean industrialization. What’s it going to be Mr. Crawford?  Mr. Shelley? Mr. Kassel? More hypocrisy?

(calling Dr. Moe, Dr. Larry, Dr. Curley)

The politicians, if they were honest instead of opportunistic vulture pretenders would realize there is no possible way to support two industries that are non conducive, but because of pie in the sky green wet dreams of “free “energy which is not cost effective, driven with tax incentives, they say the right words hoping they can fool everyone into thinking they can be all things to all people.

Ya know what? They can’t be.

They need to be put on the hot seat, and grilled.

They need to decide.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/04/14/as-grim-fishing-year-approaches-industry-tries-to-deal-with-new-catch-limits/print#ixzz2QRsrXkJd

http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130414/OPINION/304140310

http://www.pressherald.com/news/fishermen-questioning-plan-to-open-new-areas-_2013-04-15.html?pagenum=full

http://bore-head007.newsvine.com/_news/2012/10/04/14224982-meet-john-kassel-clf-president-cape-wind-shill-advocate-of-ocean-destruction-and-a-crappy-blogger-too

Noise Pollution from an Ocean Idustrialization Shill  https://fisherynation.com/archives/7260

Leave comments here

———————————————————————————————————————————————–

Industry Transformations

I used to jump like an electricians apprentice getting his first jolt every time I’d get an email alert from certain places.

I’d drop everything and post it on newsvine, and in the beginning, fisherynation.

I’m not so jumpy anymore.

I got one today about The Gulf of Maine Research Institutes Trawl to Table rsvp for permit holders and Captains to rub elbows with chefs, restaurant owners, and food service professionals for the day.

The permit owners and captains that do any kind of reading must realize that fishermen and chefs in recent times have meant chefs ripping and gutting fishermen as unsustainable louts, at least in Europe and in Canada, anyway, not to mention the Save the Swordfish days.

The mission is to build awareness of the sustainability of the groundfish ground fish resource and improving the  profitability and resilience of fishing businesses.

There will also be interactive gear displays, the latest in gear research and quality handling technology, and important information on accessing restaurant and food service markets, with an emphasis on the value of promoting underutilized species!

The chef’s will show off the latest in potato peelers, the latest latex glove for safe handling, and pass on important information!

The permit holders will be wondering how to squeeze a couple of extra nickel’s from of a pound of a shrinking commodity, and will be eager to find that margin advantage. Where will it come from, and who will pay for it? That is the question.

One thing you’ll notice about the fishing industry is richness of statistics. For everything, but, here’s one I did not know.

Restaurants sell 70% of the seafood consumed in the United States.

This from the email alert:

Chefs and restaurant owners influence what consumers want. Successful  chefs are most concerned with quality of product, traceability, and  sustainability. Yet, they often lack access to the latest and most  accurate information on Gulf of Maine seafood and the industry that  harvests it. This is your opportunity to have a conversation with chefs  from your area about the importance of sourcing locally and supporting  Gloucester’s fishing fleet.

So. Back to the question. Who is going to get filleted for that margin advantage?

From my seat, it looks like the auctions are the ones that are about to see a drastic transformation.

There is already a drive for fishermen to increase their profit margins by selling direct to savvy consumers.

There are innovate company’s that are offering alternatives to fishermen that remove some of the risks of being a hero, or a zero, depending on whether they “hit the market” or not.

We have been watching this industry transform rapidly.

Which industry entity will experience the next transformation?

I think it will be the fresh fish auction.

Leave comments here