Well, the windmill agenda is damning us all.
Well, the windmill agenda is damning us all. The evidence all points in the same direction from the standpoint of the sea. I’m a fisherman and have been all my life here in New England. I was raised on an island in Maine with a bunch of fishermen and fishing families. Everyone has their own style and way of harvesting the ocean. The unspoken truth is we all are for the betterment of the ocean, stewards of the sea by trade.
That’s why we have management teams or supposed to which manage the stocks which the government and state control and not the actual harvesters. Here in New England, we are the most regulated fishermen in the world and that’s no lie. We have video tracking daily reporting and 100 % observer coverage. Your every move is being watched.
All the fishermen are now switching their efforts and styles of groundfishing to fish without fishing is my best way to describe it.
The managements conclusion is the biomass of the white hake are on track with the rebuilding of the stock, but their research vessel hasn’t found any small juvenile hake. Fine but why hasn’t any tow assessments been made along the Maine coast when lobstermen say their traps are loaded with juvenile fish. You know the species they say that don’t exist like hake and cod.
Then they say well the commercial fleet can’t catch juvenile fish, that’s why we have a mesh size restriction. The size of the mesh being used in the Gulf of Maine is 6.5″ large fish can swim thru the mesh. Hell, they fall out. So, what would asking a fisherman or listening to a fishermen tell you?
All commercial fishermen learn the bottom over the years where fish migrate to during certain times of the year or better put migration habits. That’s how you target species for harvest. In this case its white hake. White hake live around deep water in the mud that’s where you’d coordinate your efforts to harvest that specie. Now fishermen are purposefully not fishing the mud, because they allowed us so very few hake for the fleet to work on. Which is killing the fleet because efforts have been shifted. Now landings are down on other stocks which in turn destroys the markets because of bogus assessments. Meanwhile no fishermen is seeing a problem with the hake other than their everywhere.
All this stink over this research ships data that can’t find a juvenile hake is due to lack of experience and know how. A group of experienced fishing captains got together offering our expertise and the knowledge we’ve accumulated over many years of on-the-job training. We all agreed that the data was false and there’s an abundance of hake we can’t harvest which is restricting us from harvesting other healthy fishing stocks. Which now has caused a supply line disruption which is killing the fleet.
Why do all the assessment tows always seem low to minimal effort along the Maine coast? I’ve talked with numerous lobstermen and fishermen from along the coast of Maine. They all see juvenile fish along the shores in their gear and under their wharfs and docks hell these fish are freely swimming into their traps. Imagine Lobstermen hauling gear with juvenile hake and codfish in their traps. You know the species they say that don’t exist like juvenile hake and cod they can’t find.
So experienced guys like me asked to help. Imagine that actual people wanting to help further the data to get the best accurate measurements of our stocks we harvest out of our ocean. Well Hell, we’re still waiting to help with no answer from management. Imagine that actual people wanting to help further the data to get the best accurate measurements of our stocks we harvest out of our ocean. I don’t know anyone in business who’s in business to put themselves out of business. The management doesn’t listen to the men and women harvesting the sea.
Could you imagine if small fish lived along the shore of the Maine coast. Now we put wind farms power cables right thru the nursery and the heart of the Gulf of Maine. The cables which will throw off these species built in compass’s causing 60% death mortality rate. So, this means management has done one of two things. Either they haven’t done their job or are purposefully shutting down the fisheries on behalf of wind energy. Here I am along with hundreds of fishermen and lobstermen saying the small fish are inshore along the coast of Maine, but they won’t look. Why you suppose?
This brings me to my points. It’s either lack of knowledge and skill with a faulty management insight to take the fishermen’s expertise in tracking migration of the species and lack of gear knowledge in their assessments. That’s one way, or if they did do the research and found the Maine coast to be a vital part of the juvenile fish stocks in the entire Gulf of Maines ecosystem. Running power cables could destroy the entire balance of the northeastern seaboard the power pulsing thru the lines will kill crustaceans and baby fish not to mention the deformities and throw the entire ecosystems balance out of whack. All while trying to save it, we’ll destroy it for the sake of big money wind energy.
We have a real risk of losing our heritage and way of life and an entire ecosystem that feeds our nation. Perhaps for generations to come. While killing the economy the jobs and the way of life for thousands along the New England coast. I’m calling you out. Ask real fishermen and women along the coast what we really think. Allow us the time with our knowledge with the help of the science teams to do real accurate assessments before you destroy our heritage way of life and our environment for the sake of saving our environment. Going along with these windmills is the biggest anti green thing you could do.
What will we tell our children when an entire heritage and economy and ecosystem collapses with it. Like I said it’s either they are not doing their jobs at the management level, or they are purposefully being corrupted at the managerial level to falsify the data and interpreting it to fit this green wind energy agenda. Which is terrible for our economy on the seaboard and our heritage and our ocean. Please, by all means, prove me wrong. The injustice going against the hard-working men and women whose professional expertise is based on the ocean is being destroyed. Either way management you’ve failed. Emergency actions should take place till these real questions get answered and not by some guess but that’s just my opinion. You know. The fisherman. Most definitely before you allow some wind farm to destroy the Gulf of Maine. As always, many blessings to you all. FISH ON MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS Jerry Leeman
Hey Jerry. I’m an energy engineer not a commercial fisherman. Thanks for your in person talk in Falmouth a month ago. You went through a lot of data very fast so I got a bit more out of this piece online. I presume when you say “management” and “research vessels” you are talking about specific US Govt agencies doing rqulty at-sea assessments of fish stocks. What about other species such as cod. Are the Govt agenciy test hauls on cod also faulty? Your implication: these are the same agencies who are fast tracking approval off offshore wind industrialization. Sounds like a very big conflict of interest.