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Minister LeBlanc Accepts Key Recommendation of Advisory Panel on LIFO

<b>Comment here

CNMI Got ‘Jacked,’ Fishery Management Council Is Told 

HONOLULU (19 March 2014) The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, which has authority over federally managed fisheries in Hawai`i, American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) and the US Pacific remote island areas, began its week-long meeting March 17 and 18 at the Fiesta Resort, Garapan, CNMI, and will conclude the meeting March 20 and 21 at the Hilton Hotel, Tumon, Guam. As part of the Council meeting, a Fishers Forum on the Malesso (Merizo) community-based management plan and on shark management will be held Thursday night from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Hilton Guam. Council recommendations are transmitted to the Secretary of Commerce for final approval. For the full Council meeting agenda and background documents, go to meetings section of the Council’s website at www.wpcouncil.org.

CNMI Submerged Lands and Militarization

 

CNMI Gov. Eloy S. Inos opened the Council meeting Monday noting fishery-related issues of concern to the Commonwealth. Key among them was President Obama’s Jan. 15, 2014, Presidential proclamation that withholds the transference of submerged lands 0 to 3 miles around five of the 14 islands that comprise the Commonwealth, i.e., Farallon de Pajaros (Uracas), Maug, Asuncion, Farallon De Medinilla (FDM) and Tinian.

 

U.S. Public Law 113-34, enacted in September 2013, conveyed title to the submerged lands around the 14 Northern Marianas Islands to the government of the Commonwealth. But President Barack Obama’s proclamation temporarily withholds transfer of the lands around Uracas, Maug and Asuncion (i.e., the Island Units of the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument) pending an agreement for “coordination of management that ensures the protection of the marine national monument within the excepted area.” Similarly, lands around US military leases on the islands of Tinian and FDM will be transferred upon an agreement that “ensures protection of military training within the excepted area,” the Proclamation says.

 

Inos said it is possible for NOAA and US Fish and Wildlife Service to continually disapprove any management agreement so they can retain control over the submerged lands within the monument. He asked the Council to support Commonwealth efforts to have the submerged lands “presently being held hostage by the US Departments of Commerce and the Interior returned to their rightful owners.”

 

“CNMI got jacked,” noted Arnold Palacios, Council chair and Secretary of the CNMI Department of Lands and Natural Resources (DLNR). “They gave us the submerged lands and then they took it back …. I don’t think they [Departments of Commerce and the Interior] are interested in co-management. The Antiquities Act [used to create the monument] doesn’t allow the co-management that was promised to us by the White House envoy.”

 

The Marianas TrenchMonument was created by President George W. Bush by Presidential proclamation on Jan. 6, 2009. The monument includes 95,216 square miles (60,938,240 acres) of submerged lands and waters in various places in the Mariana Archipelago and no dry land area.

 

“We got slapped, NOAA got slapped,” said John Gourley, a CNMI resident providing public comment. He noted that the Department of the Interior has sole management of the Volcanic and Trench Units of the monument, which contain two-thirds of the monument area.” While the Council membership includes a representative from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, that person was not present at the meeting. “We were blind-sided and treated unfairly,” Gourley said, adding that the authority of the withheld submerged lands should be returned to the Commonwealth.

“I’m angry, disappointed and frustrated,” said Lino Olopai, a CNMI resident of Carolinian descent. The Carolinian along with the Chamorro are the two indigenous peoples of CNMI. Olopai noted that their ancestral land predates the legal teachings that came “out of the blue” and were imposed upon them despite the language barriers for those who still use their native language as their primary language. He noted that the ancestral land, which was understood to include the water, was “handed down generation to generation without legal title. … Why can’t the American government understand and give the submerged lands back to me and then we will sit down and share it together …Give back what is rightfully ours with or without a legal document.”

“It is encroachment,” noted Council Executive Director Kitty Simonds, referring to FDM. A prime bottomfish fishing ground that is accessible to Saipan residents, FDM was occasionally closed to fishing by the military out to 3 miles for live-fire training, then 7 miles and now 10 miles with talk of permanent closures out to 12 miles.

 

“We aren’t asking the military to leave [CNMI],” said Commonwealth resident Rosemond Santos, a member of Guardians of Gani, former CNMI legislator and attorney. “But they have taken enough. We want them to respect us.” Gani is a Chammoro term for the islands in the CNMI north of Saipan, including FDM, Pagan (another island the military has been considering for training use) and the other northern islands, including the three contained in the monument.

“We do not own the land and ocean around our islands, we belong to it,” said Genevieve S. Cabera, another Guardians of Gani member. “The primary concern now is militarization … the military pushing the envelope.”

CNMI resident Gary Sword noted that the militarized waters around Guam and Tinian take away huge fishing areas. He said the average annual income per family in CNMI is $23,000. “We are not rich,” he noted. He also pointed out that residents cannot fish within 500 yards around Naval ships that utilize 11 prepositioning sites offshore Saipan. He said the heavy chains and anchors are killing the reefs, which are habitat for the fish. “Our fishing industry is dying because we don’t have anywhere to go fish,” he said.

 

Sword continued, giving a short history of the military in the CNMI. He said the Battle of Saipan during World War II included 524 ships and 30 days of warfare, leaving only 300 Chamorro living in caves. Then they were put into internment camps for two years. “The people of the CNMI have suffered a lot,” he said. “We have given a lot.” He noted that Tinian is the island from where the planes left with atomic bombs to stop the war. “Can we get some recognition for that? … Our children’s future is at stake. CNMI is crying out.”

 

The Council directed its staff to work with the CNMI government in its efforts regarding the submerged lands restricted by the President’s proclamation. The Council will also request that the Departments of Defense (DOD) and the Interior provide maps to the CNMI showing specifically the placement of CNMI’s 3-nautical mile boundary and CNMI submerged lands throughout the archipelago. The Council also directed its staff to continue monitoring DOD activities in relation to fishing access regarding potential closures around FDM, Tinian and Guam and request that the DOD and other entities provide financial support to the Marianas Integrated Management Committee, established to facilitate communication between the military and communities.

 

The Council also will urge the DOD to review the placement of their prepositioning ships in the CNMI; collect additional information from existing anchorage sites, to review changes in the anchorage and non-anchorage zones; promote a permanent mooring system, which would minimize further damage to the benthic environment, thereby allowing recovery of coral reef habitat; continue to pursue avenues to mitigate damage to benthic resources; and revisit and revise memorandum of understanding between the US Navy and CNMI, which allowed the Navy to anchor  the prepositioning ships without payment to the CNMI but may be expired. The Council recommended that the DOD provide the aforementioned assessments to the CNMI government upon completion.

 

Coral Reef Fisheries Annual Quotas

 

The 2006 reauthorized MSA requires that all federally managed fisheries have ACLs. Exceptions include fisheries that are managed internationally, fisheries for species with life cycles of less than one year, and non-targeted species designated as components of the ecosystem. The MSA also requires that the SSC determine the acceptable biological catch (ABC) and that the ACL recommended by the Council not exceed the ABC.

 

The Council reviewed the ABCs specified by the SSC for coral reef fisheries in Hawai`i, American Samoa, Guam and the CNMI and recommended that the ACLs be set 5 percent lower than the ABCs. The reduction takes into account social, economic, ecological and management uncertainty. The ACL is associated with a 25 to 40 percent chance of exceeding maximum sustainable yield (MSY), depending upon the species complex. MSA allows up to 50 percent probability of overfishing. The ACLs will apply for fishing year 2015 to 2018. A complete list of ACLs for coral reef fisheries for 2015 to 2018 can be found on the last page of this document.

 

Conflicting Local and Federal Shark Regulations

 

The Council heard presentations about the conflicting local and federal shark management regulations. The CNMI laws forbid landing of sharks with fins but allow landing of sharks for subsistence use. The federal law forbids the landing of sharks without the fins naturally attached. During a Fishers Forum on the issue of sharks held as part of the Council meeting on Monday night in Saipan, CNMI Congressman Ray Tebuteb noted that the CNMI shark management regulations were developed under a short time with limited information. Council senior scientist Paul Dalzell presented on the continued problem of shark depredation that fishermen have reported since the 1940s. The Council directed its staff to facilitate resolution of the conflict between federal and local shark regulations.

 

 

CNMI Bottomfish

 

The Council heard presentations about the regulation that restricts vessels larger than 40 feet from fishing for bottomfish 50 nautical miles (nm) around the southern islands of CNMI and 10 nm around the northern island of Alamagan. It was noted that, in 2009, the regulation was established to address concerns that larger vessels would enter into the fishery, compete with small boat local fishermen and impact the stock. Given the healthy state of the stock, the impacts of the regulations on the local fishing industry and concerns about the future of the local fishery, the Council recommended that as preferred preliminary alternatives that the bottomfish area closures around the Southern Islands and around the northern island of Alamagan be removed. Before the next Council meeting in June 2014, Council staff was directed to conduct meetings in Rota and Tinian to review the alternatives with those communities.

 

Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council: Appointees by the Secretary of Commerce from nominees selected by American Samoa, CNMI, Guam and Hawaii governors: Michael Duenas, Guam Fishermen’s Cooperative Association (Guam) (Vice Chair) ; Edwin Ebisui (Hawaii) (Vice Chair); Richard Seman, education and outreach specialist (CNMI); ); William Sword, recreational fisherman (American Samoa) (Vice Chair); Michael Goto, United Fishing Agency Ltd. (Hawaii); Julie Leialoha, biologist (Hawaii); Dr. Claire Tuia Poumele, Port Administration (American Samoa); and McGrew Rice, commercial and charter fisherman (Hawaii). Designated state officials: Arnold Palacios, CNMI Department of Land & Natural Resources (chair); William Aila, Hawaii Department of Land & Natural Resources; Dr. Ruth Matagi-Tofiga, American Samoa Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources; and Mariquita Taitague, Guam Department of Agriculture. Designated federal officials: Michael Tosatto, NMFS Pacific Islands Regional Office; Bill Gibbons-Fly, US Department of State; RAdm Cari B. Thomas, US Coast Guard 14th District; and Susan White, Pacific Reefs National Wildlife Refuges Complex.

COMMENT HERE

 

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National Marine Fisheries Service, Alaska Region

& United States Commissioner,

International Pacific Halibut Commission

P.O. Box 21668

Juneau, AK 99802

March 5, 2014

Response to February 19, 2014 NEWS RELEASE from NOAA Fisheries: NOAA TIGHTENS HALIBUT BYCATCH LIMITS FOR GULF OF ALASKA GROUNDFISH FISHERIES.

Dear Jim:

While NOAA puts a public spokesperson name on the news release for Amendment 95, let’s face facts — you are the Alaska administrator, and a voting member of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. Accordingly, your news release was considered insensitive and not well received by disappointed GOA hook and line halibut fishermen: on line with other pro-trawler actions by the NPFMC and NMFS/NOAA.

Amendment 95 is not fair and equitable in practice. You and the agency and NPFMC are not doing what is feasible, not obeying the UN FAO precautionary principle, not balancing the economic impact among sectors, not doing what is best for overall national benefit and not serving USA consumers.

‘To the extent practicable’ — really?

It is high time NMFS and the NPFMC fully grasp that the directed halibut fishery has been reduced from 100% to 27% over the past ten years while Bering Sea/Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska (BSAI, GOA) trawl fisheries continually receive extreme levels (millions of pounds) of halibut bycatch. How does your office square this with sixty (60) or more amendments to the North Pacific Gulf of Alaska Groundfish Fishery Management Plans (FMPs) since 1977 and the role of the far older bilateral agreement based International Pacific Halibut Commission — IPHC?

Does not the latter have treaty precedence over regional fishery management council (RFMC) FMPs or federal fishery legislation such as the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) and related second-rate law? In other words, how does the Secretary of Commerce and RFMC realm dominate over Congressional first-rate Treaty power?

As you know, the NPFMC June 2013 Groundfish FMP supporting document reminds in “5 Relationship to Applicable Law and Other Fisheries—5.2 International Conventions” of the “Convention for the Preservation of the Halibut Fishery of the North Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea (basic instrument for the IPHC)” of which you are a United States commissioner.

GOA groundfish Amendment 95, was a long time in coming, but about the phrase “to the extent practicable” — what does it mean to you in the dual-management course regarding the halibut specter?  Should we, and consumers, be insulted by how the term is applied or become reassured that continually unwarranted trawl bycatch can in any way help restore halibut stocks? NMFS and the Council seem to be totally impracticable; not only to us, but to any American consumer with whom we discuss halibut bycatch and bilateral legal intentions.

After all, the December 2013 expansion of GOA groundfish total allowable catch (TAC) by 52,000 MT has essentially removed any argument that there is still “a race for fish” that would warrant a trawl catch shares solution — giveaway allocations to the fleet imperiling halibut’s future. So why all this talk of allocation and so little about methods available to reduce bycatch, such as time and area closures, geographic multispecies problem identification and appropriate mitigation, etc.?  We hear the long dragged-out gear modification (excluder) discussion and can’t help but wonder, “when if ever?”

Jim, as NOAA’s representative on the NPFMC, and coinciding IPHC commissioner, we would appreciate you personally leading the way on strongly enforcing the real meaning of “to the extent practicable” in a multispecies, multi-sectored arena.  We expect you to be the strong voice at NPFMC when groundfishery amendments fail to protect the halibut and our directed fisheries. Otherwise, you represent the failure of NMFS on the frontline of destruction.

As the document says, “Many of the management measures contained herein are for the expressed purpose of mitigating a severe crisis in the domestic halibut fishery by recognizing a situation in which the trawl fishery (and possibly the sablefish setline fishery) could be a major contributor to declining halibut abundance.” And “the IPHC was created to conserve, manage, and rebuild the halibut stocks…”

Are you going to push the NPFMC and NOAA to reduce the bycatch of halibut, NOW!?  Does Amendment 95 even come close to making sense?  We’ve been taking huge cuts in the directed halibut fleet, year after year, while this small (almost insignificant) and easily attainable trawl bycatch reduction slowly comes into play by 2016.

Please, what are the real rates of GOA trawl bycatch, and reduction potential, after removing the gaming of the observer system? No one in the trawl fleet has ever come forward with the truth of what is possible, let alone what they actually bycatch. Observer coverage has now gone down from inadequate to miserably low.  Only government can force that fleet to be forthcoming, and NOAA has failed wholly in that regard.  Yes, wholly, because NMFS is still making “to the extent practicable” excuses.

Haven’t longliners have told you for 8 years that we’d pay for 100% trawl coverage? What could you have done to work for the consumers, for the taxpayers, for us and the halibut convention and providing best science, not best delay tactics?

It’s also galling that NMFS spits out in a news release, when stating — absent adequate scientific information and observer coverage — the damning-the-halibut-to-doom phrase, “while preserving the potential for the full harvest of groundfish in the GOA.”  What about preserving the potential for the full harvest of commercial halibut in the GOA and the BSAI, as well?

I meaningfully represent the voice of halibut directed fishers when I say that the trawlers must stop operating on a different playing field from us.  They never take any reasonable bycatch cutback while we take the brunt of the IPHC cutbacks.  Why can’t it be understood that the trawlers are deliberately committing a wanton destruction of our resources, and that is embezzling our IFQ wealth?

Trawlers cried about backing off a meager 7.5%, howled about an insufficient15%, but the real question is how we are going to get the trawlers cut down so that they cannot continue to decimate halibut stocks.  I.E. so that they cannot keep on operating irresponsibly, at the expense of other sectors’ incomes.

Do we run them out of business, since you’ve already ran us almost out of business?  Or can the Agency and Council turn this around while we still have a small chance to recover our halibut, crab and other multispecies stocks?

Optimum Yield means Multispecies:

What about our optimum yield (directed halibut): doesn’t it matter, too? Is it not also practicable to shut trawlers down to the same level as other sectors until they fish responsibly?  Again, I’ll remind you of our struggle to get 100% of the time observer coverage on all GOA trawlers so that the Council would know what is happening.  Not once has it been done; but just one season of 100% observer data would provide best science.

If it shows underreporting has been going on in the GOA compared to the BSAI, as we suspect, then stronger disincentives to abuse halibut are warranted.  If it shows the lower bycatch levels in the GOA are real, that had another effect, and gives the IPHC valuable, essential information to making its annual stock decisions.

Defining MSY re Amendment 95:

For now, there remains a demonstrably incomprehensible gap between the trawl sector’s balance of targeting and bycatch fisheries, when contrasted with the directed halibut fleet’s balance.  The former tilts toward wanton destruction of commonwealth and ecosystem collapse for halibut while the latter tilts toward consumer-serving and wealth producing sustainability. Shouldn’t the Council, with IPCH assistance, do Cost-Benefit analyses, and show value tradeoffs and comparisons, and how the nation and consumers fair under different management scenarios?

As G.P. Goodyear (NMFS 1996) said: “ … setting MSY as a management objective will often be insufficient for developing management advice unless the desire[d]

long-term age composition of the catch or some other qualifying factor is also specified. This is particularly true for the situation in which fisheries with inherently different selectivity compete for a resource …”

NOAA has ‘no data’ sufficiency, and lacks (i.e. we have yet to see) any “deterministic population simulation model.” Please feel free to correct me if that is not true. More to this letter’s context, as Joseph E. Powers states from NOAA’s Southeast Fisheries Science Center, “Perhaps, the most important implication is that before analysts can calculate maximum sustainable yield and associated parameters, management needs to define their desired mix of fishing and what “to the extent practicable” means.”

Powers reminds, “While Goodyear’s analysis was directed at the effects of target fisheries with different selectivities (such as commercial versus recreational), his comments are no less applicable when considering fisheries which discard bycatch of a particular stock in conjunction with other fisheries which target that same stock. The implications of Goodyear’s comments are that: MSY cannot be calculated until management has defined “extent practicable”! (underline added)

He talks in meaningful and reasonable terms, about “the dilemma faced by analysts when bycatch reduction goals (and allocations) are not defined. Additionally, metrics are suggested for evaluating ‘practicable’ bycatch reduction scenarios in terms of biological risk.” Finally, this note encourages debate on socio-economic, biological and ecological implications of bycatch reduction scenarios so that informed definitions of practicable bycatch solutions may be made.”

Imbalanced Public Input, as the GAO found out:

I have repeatedly sat through NPFMC discussions about bycatch and observer coverage, and generally heard scant discussion about such combined implications. The trawlers are unmistakably driving the regulatory boat, demanding first priority in GOA privatization, and

The problem started nearly 40 years ago by emphasizing GOA amendments are for groundfish, and relegating all the other multispecies to second class regulatory status. 60 amendments later, the focus is still on the trawlers’ brass polishing while halibut, crab and other interests clean the bilges and bureaucrats distance themselves from the hard work of going beyond looking at the cod ends, only. Maybe that’s a carryover from the initial focus on TALFF and foreign trawlers and motherships, as foreigners now own the shoreside groundfish plants instead. Trawler allocation focus takes up an inordinate amount of staff time, and budgets.

Jim, is there a calculation for the tens of millions of dollars this has cost Commerce as the NPFMC continues draining taxpayer coffers for this game?

It is primarily longline halibut directed fishers who get a mere 3 minutes, separately, to voice our concerns on the record — only to find the Council has pre-conceived its pro-trawler motion, guided by NOAA catch share mentality.  Therefore, 15% reduction, far too little and too late, instead of a 73% cutback like we have had to take in recent years.  What of the requirement to adapt the precautionary approach?

Over and over we are reminded, but cut short on “to the extent practicable” that 16 U.S.C. 1851-1852 MSA §§ 301-302; Public Law 104-297 outlines National Standard “(9) Conservation and management measures shall, to the extent practicable, (A) minimize bycatch and (B) to the extent bycatch cannot be avoided, minimize the mortality of such bycatch.” It seems nothing short of draconian to reduce hook and line directed fisheries by 20 to 30% or more annually, year after year, because it is deemed practicable.  Well, to us, it is ‘practicable’ to also have trawlers to share by severe cutbacks in bycatch.

It’s clearly not for Safety nor to end a Race for Fish:

Canadian trawlers have to adhere to more imposing standards.  In addition, studies show that safety among trawlers after catch shares were awarded, decreased.  This contrasts also with the United States P.L. 104-297 Standard stating “(10) Conservation and management measures shall, to the extent practicable, promote the safety of human life at sea.”  Clearly it may not practicable to award quotas to trawlers, despite common perceptions that they serve safety at-sea.

Notably, the recent 52,000 MT increase in pollock TAC for the GOA essentially ended “the race for fish,” as recently confirmed in a Kodiak public fishery meeting by the Alaska Groundfish Data Bank (Julie Bonney), in a moment of truthful clarity.  So what, again, is the reason for GOA groundfish privatization?

The Precautionary Approach:

Returning to C.F.R. § 600.350 (J) Social effects, adds, “(ii) The Councils should adhere to the precautionary approach found in the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries (Article 6.5).”  In addition, Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration of the UN Conference on Environment and Development and the 1995 United Nations Fish Stock Agreement strengthening the precautionary approach, combined, address “regardless of their jurisdictional nature, recognizing that most problems affecting fisheries result from insufficiency of precaution in management regimes when faced with the high levels of uncertainty encountered in fisheries.”

Recently, voting in favor of my/our proposal, the Alaska Board of Fish closed the final bays around Kodiak Island that were left open to hard-on-bottom trawling, and we hope someday they will exclude all trawling in state waters, like is done in SE Alaska. Halibut and salmon were on their minds.

What is precautionary about reducing overall observer coverage on trawlers from 30% to around 13%, and thereby hogtieing analysis from ever gaining legitimate data?  What is precautionary about a stepped cutback of only 15%, even 50%,

73% reduction, i.e. matching trawl reductions directly to that of the directed halibut ACL/TAC quota? Are you certain that NMFS is in compliance with Article 6.5?

“To the extent ‘able to be’” means…

Foremost, let’s just get clarity on what the adjective “practicable” means: capable of being done, effected, or put into practice, with the available means; feasible, capable of being used, designed or constructed for actual use; workable, achievable, attainable.  Practicable is that which can be done with the means at hand and with conditions as they are and given current and emerging technology, along with more area closures and time adjustments, under greater levels of observation, too.

To a hook and line fisher, regarding trawlers, practicable means trawlers can keep their nets completely off the bottom (not ride there on small disks in order to fake avoidance while knowing halibut stir and end up in their nets), they can not fish at night, and can move away from halibut grounds and find groundfish elsewhere; and they can take a 73% cut in their GOA (and more in the BSAI) fishery income, too.  Is it not feasible, ‘practicable,’ for them to also share with us the overall economic loss?

Bycatch Matters & Data Collection is Imperative:

§ 600.350 National Standard 9—Bycatch: (d) Minimizing bycatch and bycatch mortality, states “The priority under this standard is first to avoid catching bycatch species where practicable.”  It goes on to immediately state “Fish that are bycatch and cannot be avoided must, to the extent practicable, be returned to the sea alive. Any proposed conservation and management measure that does not give priority to avoiding the capture of bycatch species must be supported by appropriate analyses.”

Trawlers cannot return to the sea alive, to any reasonable measure, survivable halibut. And I have never seen anything close to “appropriate analysis.” Based on what expert data, may I ask you to show us?

Rather, we note that in combination with § 600.350, MSA 303(1)(11+12), tells us that you are responsible to “promote development of a database on bycatch and bycatch mortality in the fishery to the extent practicable.”  There’s that adjective again.  Does it have meaning or simply serve as an excuse for NPFMC failures?

To me, obtaining that data has long meant a proposal for100% of the time observer coverage in the GOA, preferably paid for by trawlers — but which hook and line fishermen have long agreed to fund: because we knew that absent that database, our future, now turned into the present — was solely politically doomed.

In that meantime, how many millions has NMFS spent on a slowly developing and far more costly Observer program that has had the effect of reducing Trawl observation by two thirds, to 13% — one ninth of what’s ‘practicable’ and cost effective.

Predictably, we now barely pay seasonal fishery expenses on the highly reduced directed harvest pounds.  It makes me sick to watch my vessels docked while trawlers not only in large part clearly caused the directed halibut quota drop (their propaganda to the contrary) while they got 52,000 MT more groundfish this year in the GOA, which only increases the pressure on destruction of our halibut.

Bycatch reduction is obviously not much of a NMFS or NPFMC priority, despite the many laws.

The October 9, 2012 NPFMC motion on ‘GOA Trawl PSC Tools’ contains many errors.  Regarding the Purpose and Need Statement: Surely safety will not improve just like Canada; and as we experience in BSAI crab, the processing plants will still tightly schedule deliveries and the fleet will continue to fish in questionable weather. It is also rather flagrant to state “This program will not modify overall management of other sectors in the GOA … which already operate under a catch share system.” On paper? What a convenient trawl-faced lie.  Because I can guarantee you that my entire business plan and quota management and accounting (cash inflows and outflows) and financial credit, for Area 3 and Area 4 annual halibut operations has been devastatingly modified. As is true for other halibut longliners.

Regarding the Goals and Objectives: there’s no concern for related species’ “fair and equitable access” or “consideration [of] the value of assets and investments” and what it means to our community when we bring home coast wide halibut income.  Is Goal 5 taken seriously — “Balance interests of all sectors and provide equitable distribution of benefits and similar opportunities for increased value” — by the NPFMC and your office?  How about Goal 13: “Minimize adverse impacts on sectors and areas not included in the program” — how is that happening?

Fair and Equitable would reallocate Groundfish and PSC to Longliners:

It is a simple observation that the NPFMC and Commerce are allowing the trawlers to conduct a massive directed fishery on halibut bycatch, within international jurisdiction.  It is an obvious conclusion that one redress for those harms would be to reallocate a portion of the groundfisheries and PSC — should a catch share system be emplaced, as is the apparently unstoppable political will of NOAA — to the harmed longline sector.

We’d find a way to hire a few clean fishing skippers and put to sea trawlers and crews that truly care about conservation and bycatch reduction.  Then you could compare our 100% observed clean practices to the existing devastation. Allow us to keep the marketable halibut and reward USA consumers with high quality protein, contributing to maximizing the net national benefits.

It would be ‘practicable’ to kindly answer to many questions posed within this letter.

As you know, GOA bycatch rates deviate inexplicably from the BSAI, and the public perception justified by that is “trawlers are raping the ocean.” Likewise, Bering Sea areas that are closed to longliners, to help rebuilding halibut stocks, remain open to trawlers. The top rapists — hard on bottom trawlers — are allowed to operate there. What good does that do?

They have no defense, no facts to warrant this welcome to the school yard management policy.  The facts are on our side, and we are bound to the IPHC convention while they scurry off to the shadows to massacre halibut as bycatch. It hardly needs mentioning again, PSC means “prohibited species catch.”

The trawlers fishing behavior will not improve until the government comes along, like in Canada, and says ‘you will change, now!’ And until they rush to put observers aboard, full time, and finally determine their true level of responsibility for halibut declines.

Government must stop them from fighting the 100% full time coverage, which can only be viewed by ‘a reasonable man’ as concealing the truth.

Jim, retirement approaches and you won’t be with us that much longer on the NPFMC. Isn’t it time you be the one to start pounding a shoe on the table and champion the cause of fair and equitable FMPs “mitigating the severe crisis in the domestic halibut fishery” and holding trawlers’ feet to the responsibility and accountability fire?

We’d like your help, Administrator. Commissioner.

Respectfully yours,

Lu

Ludger W. Dochtermann; F/V North Point, F/V Stormbird

P.O. Box 714; Kodiak, AK 99615

 

Comment here

 

 

 

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After listening to the guidelines lay ed out at the SALTONSTAL​L-KENNEDY TELEPHONE TOWNHALL AND WEBINAR Thursday, August 8 from 3:00 to 5:00 pm that lasted all of thirty seven minutes, tieing up both my computer, AND my telephone, because some government employee wasn’t capable of presenting a webinar with a listen only setup, with a call in number for questions that could have been heard through the webinar, I realize what a sham this latest attempt was to help the government destroyed industry this is.

I saw the attendees list, and I recognized not one single name involved in the Northeast Multi Specie Groundfish industry, and as far as I know, it’s the Northeast Multi Specie Groundfish industry that was declared a failed fishery by the US Commerce Department.

 

Senator Warren was all gung ho about fishery aid to the Northeast ground fishery.

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 federal government needs to act quickly to provide disaster assistance for our fishermen, and we need long-term policy changes and better science to preserve this critical lifeline that has been part of the commonwealth’s economy and traditions for generations.

It is vitally important we support our fishermen in these difficult times, and I’m committed to being a strong advocate in Washington for Massachusetts’ fishing communities.

Senator Warren, if there is one shred of truth to your “commitment”, then I suggest to you, you make sure that these insignificant monies, in relationship to the scope of this government caused disaster which has become even more critical because of environmental issues that at the time of the disaster declaration were not known, go where they will do the most good for those you mentioned in the above quote.

Boat owners, fishermen, net makers, icemen, fuel men, machine shop’s, welders, railway’s vessel supplier’s, electronic shop’s, are the ones that need this measly $10 million dollars, which is a drop in the bucket that NOAA owes the fishing industry in S-K money.

Babbling John Bullard, a man that is not quite sure what his official title is, believes his agency of shame is bending over backwards to present “opportunity” for the beleaguered fleet is excited about dogfish as an important ingredient in the salvation plan, but today on Cape Cod, dogfish was 10 cents a pound to the boat.

That’s $10 dollars a box, 10 boxes, a thousand pounds is $100 dollars.

That does not even come close to paying the fuel bill that comes out of the crews share. How can the crewman pay his rent? buy groceries?

How can he buy gloves at NB Ship Supply?

How can the owner haul his boat out at the railway, when the pathetic, paltry $10 million S-K money that should be going to the industry is being divided into grant money through a competition for entities which are not directly fleet involved?

It is another slap in the face of those thrusted into the cruelty of administrative failure.

Is this how you help those you said needed help?

Captain Paul Cohan of Gloucester wrote a response to your op-ed posted at the Gloucester Daily Times, and Southcoast Today.

In it he wrote,

Do you realize who are going to be the beneficiaries of these “sustenance crumbs” which have fallen under NOAA’s banquet table will be?

The consultants, the grant writers, the lawyers who represent the consultants and grant writers, basically, the chiselers.

Senator, is this what you had in mind?

To get the best use of this money for those that need it the most, the money should be used as a fuel subsidy to those that are responsible to provide the raw material that drives this industry, the fishermen.

This fuel subsidy should be granted to the smallest industry members, the single and two vessel operation’s in the Common Pool and Sectors.

It’s the fishermen that need the help so they can keep everyone else going, and a fuel subsidy will bring them some relief.

Now. Let’s look ahead at the “Big Picture” in the next Go ‘Round, and Bust Up the Big Boy’s with a Buy Out.

Comment here

 

A Pathetic Joke Reaffirm’s that some Politicians are Clueless

 

 

 

 July 24, 2013 – John Aldridge, a crewmember of the 44-foot lobster vessel Anna Mary was last seen aboard the boat during his watch relief at 9 p.m., Tuesday, while the vessel was underway off Montauk, N.Y.

How many times have you read of or heard of a fisherman going overboard, only to watch an unsuccessful chain of events involving fruitless search and rescue operation’s to see them become possible recovery operation’s, and predictably, abandoned after a period of time, dictated by estimates of rate of survival and sea conditions?

Way too many.

Have you known anyone that has been lost? John Aldridge is not your typical fisherman that would find himself in an environment that, under those circumstances, would have mortal man in full blown panic mode, watching that 360 light disappear over the horizon, enveloped in darkness, feeling that cold water biting at every square inch of skin.

He had some things going for him, like the boot’s he used to keep himself afloat, and one thing we all think we have, self confidence. His attitude was his saving grace, along with the ability to improvise under extreme pressure, fighting to live, and when they found him twelve hours later, alive, we all know it was nothing short of a miracle.

The whole nation knows of John Aldridge because of his unusual survival story.

We all know how rare this is in the fishing industry.

Honestly, had that been me, I wouldn’t have made it. Think about your self for a few minutes, and assess your reality of the chances of coming through this as Aldridge did.Be honest. Would you have made it?

Contemplate the reactions of your wife, children, sister, mother, father, all your friends, dory mates knowing you’ve been swallowed by the sea.Hell. Think about your favorite bartender holding your tab till you settle up!

These incidents will never be eliminated, but there is some cheap insurance that can be purchased to stack the odds of survival and/or recovery in your favor, and one item in particular would increase the ability to be found.

The first is a PFD.Getting you guy’s to wear one will be scorned by many of you, but with the many styles, including co2 inflated, there is a huge selection available to choose from, and would at least make your chance’s of survival 100% better with than without.The second item is the Personal Locator Beacon. Same thing as the PFD’s.

Huge range of selection and they all do the same thing. Tell the people looking for you where you are.

If Aldridge had one of these, they would have found him within a couple of hours, depending on how quick the Coast Guard could’ve gotten there, or even sooner by commercial vessels alerted by the Coast Guard.As I said, think about your wife, children, sister, mother, father, all your friends, dory mates, and your bartender!Get and use a PFD, and be sure it has a PLB in the pocket.

Comment here

 

——————————————————————————Richard Gaines, Staff Writer, Gloucester Daily TimesFor years, we found his byline under the headline of every major fishery article that we read at the Gloucester Daily Times.It told us to read on for the truth and an unbiased perspective that a great journalist presents regarding our livelihoods.

Richard’s articles provided the information to the public of the complexities that made up the convoluted issues surrounding the stories of the New England ground fishery — something that was just about impossible.Some of the articles would leave the public confused, but industry insiders knew exactly what he was bringing up.  At times, these controversial to insider articles would erupt, causing some noses to get out of joint, generating lively, pointed, and sometimes fierce debate.

Those were my favorites, and I know what Richard wrote was on the money, even though some would disagree, of course.

To those people I say, some of these issues will be raised again, because there has been no closure.

There’s a lot of unfinished business to be settled, and our literary warrior, Richard Gaines, forever rides with many of us in our hearts and minds. Many of us that will attempt to keep those issues alive.

There are some that won’t share in our feelings regarding our beloved friend and beacon of justice for the small boat fishermen, and for fishermen in general, and we understand this.ENGO’s and the “too big to fail” fishing conglomerates and even the bureaucracy of NOAA/NMFS, that includes OLE/OGC, may be breathing sighs of relief, or are even content to know that Richard Gaines won’t be watchdogging them.

While such agenda bound groups might find temporary relief in Richard’s passing, his crossing the bar merely reaffirms to us that we must each continue the struggles that are easier to walk away from than to stand and fight back.  To those bad players, we’ll steadfastly say, “As long as we draw a breath of existence, let it be known that our loss will not be your gain.”

I also realize that many who do understand what I’m trying to say are battle weary. For many, it’s been a decade’s long continuous fight, but it is a worthy one.

Richard Gaines created a standard that we all now expect in the esoteric arena of fishery journalism; but sadly, there is no one individual to carry on the legacy he left for us.  During this time of awakening to this cruel reality the question becomes, “How do we continue Richard’s work that still demands greater accountability to the resource and the public?”

We must find the way. Richard would want us to; and his bright beacon will forever guide us to that home harbor where truth and conscience tie up to the dock alongside integrity and grit.

Click to comment

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When you lose something you can’t replace

South Coast Today reporter Steve Urbon did an article about Richard Gaines crossing the bar,”Reporter’s death silences voice for fishing industry” and the void that has become apparent to all of us that follow these issues.

It was a decent response to the fact that Richard Gaines was absolutely superior at his craft, and that we have lost the important ingredient of the compound of the glue that has held us together.

Richard was a gift to us all, not only from himself, but from his Editor, Ray Lamont, who enabled Richard to indulge deeply into the issues that would not have been known.

We owe the Gloucester Daily Times, and Ray in particular, a great deal of gratitude.

I have a running inventory the articles generated from the home team, and since February, 2010 , there are hundreds and hundreds of articles dedicated to Gloucester and New England fish reporting. Richard and the Times were all inclusive for all of New England with their coverage.

I also posted as many South Coast Today articles as I could, but being not as dedicated to the cause as the Gloucester Daily Times, there are but a fraction of the articles. For instance in March of 2010, Gaines published fifteen articles, Urbon published one.

There were also four Editorials published at the Gloucester Daily Times.

Not to mention, they have a pay wall after ten articles, leaving a void in available material for people that can’t afford to pay, but want to read the information.

Interesting enough, they also have articles that are not “keyed” allowing free access.

When it comes to information about the industry, and a publication is interested in getting the specific information to the people in the industry, the industry information should fall into that category. Not keyed.

Fishing industry news is not a money maker like a horrific crime, or a Nascar wreck, but sometimes some things are about more than money.

To exclude interested party’s from this information in the name of profit does nothing for the industry that has people in this day and age landing brokers, or losing everything they own.

Jim Kendall was quoted in the article.

“No one got into it like Richard,” said seafood consultant Jim Kendall. “It even got to the point where fishermen were (angry) at him for knowing too much about the fishing industry. He was like a brother or a cousin. You know the good and the bad. That didn’t bother him one bit.” He’s right,

The door is still open on a lot of the issues that the Times, and Gaines fearlessly published, much to the chagrin of some in the industry.

The ones that were angry were angry for real reasons, and for every angry fisherman, there were dozens that were grateful that the crap that would be preferred to be ignored instead, was being discussed in the “Front of the House”

The last sentence in Urbons article. “There is going to be a lot for the rest of us to do.”

A more accurate statement could not have been written.

The question is, who is going to do it, and can we count on getting the whole story like we have been getting?

“Lights will guide you home, and ignite your bones,,,,”

Comment here

Walmart will continue to sell Alaska Salmon that is not MSC certified, but not in the US!

Dear salmon supplier,

As you know, Walmart has an ongoing commitment to sustainable seafood sourcing. To meet our requirements for wild-caught seafood, the source fishery must be certified sustainable to the MSC standard (or equivalent*) or, if not certified, actively working toward certification. This latter scenario includes fisheries in public fishery improvement projects (FIPs).

Sources of MSC certified fisheries are currently available from Alaska, British Columbia, and Russia. If you are not already sourcing from an MSC certified fishery, please explore these options. Since these areas also have fisheries that are not MSC certified, it is critical you buy from companies or producers with MSC chain of custody.

Currently, there is only one public salmon FIP in the world. It is a very small project led by WWF for chum salmon in the Tugur River of Russia. However, we are aware there are discussions of other FIPs in Russia and Alaska. In order to meet Walmart’s requirements these FIPs must be made public and must have a comprehensive work plan available showing how it is working toward certification. If you would like to sell Walmart product that is from a fishery in a FIP, please work with the organization implementing the FIP to meet the requirements above before shipping any product to us. If you have questions about this or need advice, please contact me via email and copy Brad Spear([email protected])with Sustainable Fisheries Partnership, our NGO partner.

 

Although I’m not a Salmon Supplier, I am an American Citizen reading about Walmart dumping the Alaska Salmon Fishery as a supplier of Salmon at Walmart stores in the United States for the lack of some little blue ENGO sticker from Britain!

Walmart Corporation ignores the fact that all US fisheries are fished sustainably BY LAW.

The Walton Foundation has a history of financing destructive policies towards US Fishermen through collaboration with ENGO’s that are anti US Fisherman.

Once again, they remind me they are no friend of our Fishermen.

I remind you that the Walton Foundation financed the Pew/EDF/ENGO written “Oceans of Abundance” hogwash that has turned many politicians against US Fishermen, while financing the Corporate green washers they need to paint them as eco friendly.

I had to see who the MSC funders, backers, “partners” are, and amazingly, the Walton Foundation is among those that support the profit generating Marine Stewardship Council, along with an all star cast of “Ocean Champions”! Link

I’m curious about this, though.

It seems as though Walmart won’t stop selling Alaska Salmon.

They just won’t be selling it to US citizens!

Alaskan seafood now being imported directly

Alaskan seafood has begun being imported directly into Brazil this month via supplier Noronha Pescados. The products are Alaska salmon, pollock and cod and they are going straight to Walmart, Pao de Acucar, Cencosud and other Brazilian stores.

Michael Cerne, the executive director of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI), attributed the quick and relatively recent growth of Brazil’s interest in Alaskan seafood to ASMI’s marketing initiatives.

“The Brazilian programme for ASMI is relatively new. We just started about a year and a half ago,” said ASMI’s Brazilian marketer Jose Madeira, KMXT reports. “We’re like a beef country, but per capita consumption of seafood in Brazil has like doubled in the last decade.”

Until now, Brazil had only been exposed to Alaskan cod, but it was shipped through Portugal, where it was salted. Because of that midway point, Cerne explained that the fish could no longer be labelled “Alaskan” as there was a lack of traceability. 

But directly shipping the fish to Brazil does allow for the fish to be labelled as Alaskan, which paves the way for other Alaskan fish, Madeira stated.

“So we’re also exploring other opportunities with other species like salmon, halibut, black cod and some other species,” he said. “So we see great potential for Brazil; it’s a relatively new market, and we’re just starting to see the numbers moving up.”

Based on the price point, the target market will probably be middle class and upper middle class, according to Dru Fenster, a spokesperson for ASMI, The Cordova Times reports.

Madeira has been in charge of much of the marketing and promotion behind the scenes, which, as Cerne pointed out, is responsible for growth in the markets.

“We do a lot of promotion efforts with our partners in Brazil supporting the importers,” he said. “We do retail merchandizing, we have a very extensive programme for advertising, trade missions, participate in trade shows. We just organized a buyer delegation from Brazil to come to Alaska in July.”

He acknowledged that Alaska wild salmon is up against the very popular farmed Atlantic salmon in Brazil, although ASMI sees a lot of potential in the food service industry.

“We have a strong message about salmon, and I think eventually we’re going to break into the Brazilian market and get some very good market share,” he added.

ASMI has been working within Brazil since 2011 and conducted two trade missions there in March and December 2012. Its figures show that imports from Alaska doubled last year and Cerne expects the trend to keep progressing.

By Natalia Real  http://www.fis.com/fis/worldnews/worldnews.asp?monthyear=7-2013&day=1&id=61852&l=e&country=0&special=&ndb=1&df=0  

They would deny US Walmart shoppers access to Alaska Salmon, but back door it to Brazil!

ASMI responds to Walmart letter on salmon; surprised Walmart would reject American fish

Comment here

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I was wondering,,,,,,,,,,,

It’s the weekend, and I’m wondering if the people that are interested enough in fishery related news and issues are taking the weekend off, like it’s only a Monday through Friday activity?

I’m wondering if the people that read about these issues, and pay to access pay sites, feel like they are getting their moneys worth, when Fisherynation.com gives them the same information or more without the foodie stuff, seven days per week, and post it as it arrives?

I wonder if John Sackton really expects anyone in the New England fishing industry to give legitimacy to his description of the hookers, who are having an identity crisis, like NMFS is with this NOAA Fisheries thing?

Finally, the Cape Cod Hookers are changing their name to the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance, as more types of fishermen join the organization than just long liners.  No word yet on a name change for their annual ‘Hookers Ball’ which is a big fundraiser for them on Cape Cod.  The group was criticized in New England for its close association with environmental NGO’s during deliberations on catch shares, after it’s pilot program on cod shares became highly valuable and successful.

After all, you can put lipstick on the pig, but it’s still a pig, right?

I just finished reading Peter Shelley’s whine fest about the state of New England cod and the apologists for overfishing, and wonder if he realizes the ones that are over fishing the most are never include in the discussion?

I wonder if he just brushes aside the building wave of articles concerning the unregulated fishing community of Marine Mammals of all types that have blossomed following forty one years of protection, pretending not to see them?

Wondering if ‘ole Peter raises a garden, and if he does, do you think he’d just let the varmints just eat the vegetables he might be trying to grow because he would never put a fence around them to protect the vegetables?

I wonder if he has bird feeders around his property, and allows the pesky squirrels to empty them out, denying the birds feed?

I’m wondering what the anti shark fin bunch in Cali is thinking when they deprive cultural consumers of shark fin soup, turning the Asian community into pariahs, while expecting the fins from legally landed sustainable shark fisheries, to be wasted and not utilized?

Do enviro groups, like Oceana, the Center for Biological Diversity, Shark Stewards, and WildEarth Guardians discount the science of NOAA/NMFS unless it comes to using the questionable science to cleanse the ocean of fishermen?

Does it not seem as though this is what hypocrite Peter Shelley accuses the “industry apologists” of?

(Isn’t it interesting, by the way, how the same industry apologists who are so quick to savage the federal stock assessment science when it doesn’t say what they want to hear are so quick to rely on it when it does?) Peter Shelley

 In its decision, the National Marine Fisheries Service discounted the first peer-reviewed scientifically published population estimate of West Coast great white sharks which unveiled what listing proponents said are alarmingly low numbers of breeding females — numbers drastically lower than those of most other endangered species.

“The federal government simply made the wrong decision in the face of the best available science,” Geoff Shester, California Program Director for Oceana

I’m wondering when commercial fishermen will realize the benefit of utilizing Personal Flotation Devices as a cheap insurance policy following the death of another fisherman, Abbotsford fisherman Albert Arthur Armstrong in Prince Rupert ,BC.?

Not knowing the full extent of the situation, other than he was tangled up in a gill net, could it have made the difference?

After all, Commercial fishing is still the most dangerous occupation in the world, is it not?

I’m wondering why the most destructive corporation of Main Street America, Walmart, is willing to stop stocking wild caught Alaska Salmon just because another parasitic of the purest form ENGO, MSC, no longer carry’s the logo, but is lawfully obliged to fish as a sustainable fishery?

The bulk of Alaska’s salmon industry, you’ll recall, recently fired MSC — the London-based Marine Stewardship Council — as tedious, expensive and superfluous. DB

I’m wondering if you’ll join me as I reach out to the Norigs3 Coalition to oppose oil and gas drilling on any part of Georges Bank?

If you can answer these questions, or have some of your own, leave a comment or a question, will ya? BH

http://www.talkingfish.org/opinion/worst-times-or-just-very-very-bad-industry-splits-hairs-over-the-awful-condition-of-cod?

http://www.lakeconews.com:federal-government-wont-give-california-great-white-sharks-endangered-species-status

http://www.thevindicator.com most dangerous job

http://www.bclocalnews.com/news/213558841.html

http://deckboss.blogspot.com/2013/06/is-this-anything.html

http://www.thevanguard.ca/Business/2013-06-27/article-3293474/Norigs-3-wants-action-on-Georges-Bank-moratorium/1

Comment here

 

Let’s be fair John Bullard, You’re the Master of Folksy Feel Good Babble

John Bullard, NE Regional Administrator, National Marine Fisheries Service, which is his official title, began his comments at the NEFMC meeting this Tuesday morning recalling his interactions with Richard Gaines, Staff Reporter, Gloucester Daily Times

The recollections of Bullard of a relentless technician of journalistic excellence were interesting, and are telling of the new revisionist history era that we are entering.

Always the Master of Folksy Feel Good Babble, Bullard recalled meeting the Gloucester Daily Times reporter when he landed job the running Northeast Regional Office, for an informal harbor side chat, and telephone conversations that would at times be long winded, as I’m sure Richard would give this guy the third degree, ripping and gouging to get as much information as he could get.

John Bullard’s recollections were shared in a humorous, folksy friendly way.

Something Bullard said, though, was interesting, and it was about Gaines and that he wasn’t fair, but was an industry partisan, which is accurate. He was industry partisan for a reason, and for anyone connected to NMFS administration to complain about fairness, is ludicrous.

“Was Gaines fair? Hell no he wasn’t fair” said Bullard.

Gaines exposed just how unfair the history of this agency is to fishermen from the yellowtail letter, to the pilfering of the Asset Forfeiture Fund for exotic, and other questionable travel by a bunch of government servants that operated as they answered to no one, because they didn’t.

Larry Yacubian, the disgraced former scalloper from New Bedford that lost everything he ever worked for because the NMFS OLE and OGC could tell you how fair they were, and the ALJ helped them prove it!

The notes and emails to Swartwood coordinating the meeting reflect the active involvement of Cam Kerry, chief counsel for the Commerce Department, and his deputy Geovette Washington, as well as Monica Medina, NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco’s principal deputy. Their initiative was aimed at clearing the reputation of the Coast Guard judges via the secret meeting.

Although fragmentary, the notes obtained by the Times describe an impassioned effort by Joseph Ingolia, then chief justice of the U.S. Coast Guard Administrative Law Judge System,to resurrect the reputation of the system that suffered severe damage in Swartwood’s 236-page report last April examining four dozen cases referred to him by Zinser.

By the date of the hour-long meeting in Swartwood’s Boston office on Nov. 15, Ingolia, who has since retired, had negotiated a NOAA press release exonerating the system in exchange for its agreement to complete cases docketed prior to Sept. 8, 2011.

The press release of Nov. 10, five days before the meeting, was shown to Swartwood, while, according to the notes, Ingolia and Megan Allison, the court system administrator, emphasized that the chain of command at the Commerce Department and its subordinate agency NOAA had agreed it would be best for Swartwood to retract his allegations.

“I don’t think that anybody has to be damaged by this,” Ingolia is reported to have said. “You took testimony about facts, you carried out your duties with respect to what you were asked to do — used testimony — that testimony is wrong — you can come out with something, re-evaluate with new information, and with the respect to Coast Guard ALJ (administrative law judges), you say what you want by way of correction — if that happens, it aligns everything …. “

From Crooked Cops, to Catch Shares and Camelot, the “best available science” of questionable stock surveys based on admitted purposeful negligence to utilize the trawl gear as designed for use on the Good Ship Big and Slow, there is nothing fair about John Bullard’s agency, or trustworthy.

What he did not say is also noteworthy.

The fact is, that much to the horror of every NOAA/NMFS bureaucrat is that got their noses stuffed into the poop pile, Gaines was brutally honest, and that has absolutely nothing to do with fairness.

It has everything to do with courage.

John Bullard’s agency can’t even be honest about who they are, and this is also recognized on the West Coast as there is no such agency titled NOAA Fisheries. John is not the Administrator of that non existent agency.

John Bullard, NE Regional Administrator, National Marine Fisheries Service

Link to quote

Comment here

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One scandal of the National Marine Fishery Service, unknown, but for Richard Gaines

Some that read this, will know of Richard Gaines. Some may recognize his name from the hundreds of articles seeded from Gloucester Daily Times (gloucestertimes.com) to this newsvine community of ours, as well as other outlets of fishery news.  The name is recognized in every circle of this industry from Maine to Alaska, and internationally in the fishing world as well. Fishing people  know who he is and they are glad to know him, or of him. He has been chronicling the current chapter of  fishery history, that will be cited in fishing history books to be written in the future, using the news archives of the Gloucester Daily Times as many authors have before.  Richard Gaines is continuing the tradition, as the Times has recorded fishing history since 1888.

There are hundreds of books and publications that site the Times in reference for the subject matter of the fishery that has been the back bone of Gloucester. This famous and historic seaport which is the home of commerce in the new world is this place. Europeans came here to fish. Gloucester is fish!

The recent admittance of two very powerful government agency’s that NOAAs National Marine Fishery Service was exposed by the US Commerce Departments Inspector General Todd Zinnser forced the apology. While using and abusing their authority in a very unprofessional manner and shown to be extreme while performing their duties, and down right lying and covering up their activity, someone has had to answer for this mess. In many opinions these abuses are no less than criminal.

Director Jane Lubchenco, had slid her hand along a spoke of the wheel, to steer her ship, NOAA, and picked up a splinter. That splinter consisted of many years of abuse and was later found to have a source of unlimited party money from a bottomless pit. The Asset Forfeiture Fund. A fund that was compiled of fines generated in the enforcement of the nations fishery laws. The splinter has caused an infection. Her agenda to drive the fisheries of the nation to the commodity market, is has inflamed many, to include growing members of the US Congress. There will be plenty to answer for.

If you were employed in the process of enforcing these laws, you were a direct benefactor as these funds went largely unchecked and were found, through the IG investigation, to have been abused. Performance bonuses were awarded regularly from the fund. Abused were the people who generate the raw product in the fishing community to turn into a tangible product that fuels the commerce of the community. In effect, these Federal employees removed millions of dollars from the community. In a four and one half-year period, they removed $100 million dollars from the community. With the economic multiplier of x6, that’s a lot of money removed from the community, not just from fishermen, but from the local economy. I would dare say that more than a few teachers salary’s would have been afforded.

To be fair infractions were committed, but, through the investigation, many of these fines were found to be generated by confusion of the misunderstanding of these laws. A complicated tangle of regulations that require a law degree to understand, and even then, it’s a good possibility a barrister could also misunderstand.

But Jane’s splinter went in very deep, and she thought she could ignore it and move forward without addressing the issue of her law enforcement branch. She was denied.  And she, at the end of this chapter was forced to do something that I’m sure made her ill. Apologise to fishermen that were abused by her NMFS agency. Her boss Gary Locke also apologised. He missed the chance to make right for his mishandling of other overlooked debacles related directly to his decision-making.

From this vantage point, they also owe the community of Gloucester an apology, as well as the other outposts of New England’s ground fish fleet. They have a few more apology’s to go. And the compensation returned is far from satisfactory.

There has been one constant that fishermen have been able to count on through this episode of history that they have lived through that will be written about, just as  fishermen before them have from this historic place.

Who in the Hell is Richard Gaines?     Richard Gaines, Staff Writer, Gloucester Daily Times.

I can guarantee, that the members of the New England Fishery Management Council know him. Everyone at NMFS surely know of him. I know Dr. Jane Lubchenco of EDF/NOAA fame knows who Richard Gaines is! Hell! even US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke knows who he is. I’d bet even President Obama  knows of him.

These are some  that wished they hadn’t.

I would dare say that for the last two years, or so, thanks to Richard we should all be very grateful to know of him, for if it not for Richards determination to bring this information to the public, there is a real chance that things would be the same as they were. Disgustingly dysfunctional. This journalist has single-handedly brought these fishery issues to the attention of the citizens of the United States, and the world!

There has been a noticeable lack of media coverage of the major networks, and print media, but thankfully for the sake of justice for all, the determined Richard Gaines, with his editors support, Ray Lamond, the misdeeds and injustices of two very powerful government agency’s, NOAA/NMFS, and US COMMERCE have been exposed.

With special thanks to Joey C, creator of GoodMorningGloucester who did an interview with this humble gentleman on a dock in Gloucester Harbor, we all get a chance to know Richard a little better, and to understand why he stayed focused. It’s in him.

Although I doubt he would agree, We all owe Richard Gaines our Gratitude. He brought us all Justice.

Richard Gaines– The Interview Part I | GoodMorningGloucester   Jun 7, 2009

 

Richard Gaines– The Interview Part II | GoodMorningGloucester  Jun 7, 2009

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Lookin’ Back: Capt Dave and F/V Hard Merchandise to make television debut!

(originally published @newsvine.com

Tue Feb 7, 2012 5:33 AM

I had heard the rumors. There was to be a new series about fishing, along the lines of Deadliest Catch, and Lobster Wars, and others like it. It appears that the tv viewing public really enjoy these types of shows.

There have been some interesting fishery issues concerning the New England ground fishery, and I decided to contact Gloucester Fisherman Captain Dave Marciano, and discuss our shared concerns.

During the conversation, I asked him what he had been up to.

He mentioned that he had been busy filming with National Geographic Channel’s upcoming TV show, “Wicked Tuna”.

One newsviner was in the Discovery series Lobster Wars. F/V Excalibur, and Capt. Dave is now the second!

Wicked Tuna, meanwhile, hails from Piligian’s Pilgrim Studios (Dirty Jobs)and will explore the business of bluefin tuna fishing in Gloucester, Mass., as crews set sail for the elusive fish that can fetch between $3,000 and $15,000 in peak season.

“Commercial tuna fishing is brutally competitive. With its limited season, the intelligence and prowess of the fish, and the sheer fact that they’re worth so much, the livelihood of each vessel’s crew can be made or broken in a month,” Piligian said. “Pairing that kind of pressure with the harsh environment of Gloucester makes this one of the most intense and compelling series Pilgrim has ever produced.”

The series is attracting plenty of attention and there already have been articles written about the show and featured in numerous sport-fishing blogs and in a couple of Huffington Post articles.

Carl Safina, not your ordinary fellow but is a MacArthur fellow, Pew fellow, and Guggenheim fellow, had a very predictable reaction, being anti-fish, and staying loyal to the Pew philosophy. I don’t know much about Mr. Safina, but Pew Fellow says plenty to me.

National Geographic Channel, In Race for Bottom, Adds Killing Endangered Species to New Season Entertainment Lineup

Well, people, what an incredibly long drop it’s been since the electrifying National Geographic TV specials of my youth, whose mere opening theme notes would raise the hair on my neck.

Oh oh.

It seems almost like the scenario of a post-apocalyptic surrealist satire, unimaginable just a few years back: National Geographic Channel has been bought out by Fox, is “joint-venturing” with the disgraceful and disgraced Rupert Murdoch, and creating programming to push Bill O’Reilly’s books. And, well — National Geographic Channel will be killing endangered species for entertainment.

Anyone that’s read my Fox articles know that this fellow and I do have some common ground, and I think O’reilly is a nut, but much to the chagrin of Safina, Blue fin are not an endangered specie.

They’ve just announced the new unscripted show: Wicked Tuna.

Oh. My Gawd!

Awesome, eh? Already, we have: a smiling face and a dead, rather small, bluefin tuna.

Here, in 2012, I find the premise revolting. Despicable.

Get a grip, Carl.

And therefore, it’s bound to be a crowd pleaser as National Geographic Channel aims to lead in Cable’s race to the bottom.

Every ones a critic!

The thrilling tagging of giant fish as scientists track their migrations across oceans might have provided the show’s rationale, but that’s clearly too intellectual (though all the other elements of cable success are there: adventure, personal drama (the tagging involves grad students), seasickness, profanity). Read the rest here!

I wish it was video instead of print. Visions of bulging eyes an pulsating veins!

He does semi-snap out of it in his next article at Huffpost, leaving plenty of controversial remarks that I personally found quite offensive, and un truthful, but that is to be expected from a Pew crusader. I digress.

Will National Geographic TV’s Wicked Tuna Be Better Than Advertised?

Following National Geographic Channel’s announcement of its upcoming TV show, “Wicked Tuna,” and my consequent slam, I received a phone call inviting me to Nat Geo headquarters. Our discussion seemed a big improvement over their press release. Yes, really. As announced, this show will feature commercial fishing for bluefin tuna. With or without the cameras, those boats kill fish,,global bluefin tuna enterprise,,in the world,,problem arises,,global union of conservation scientists,,perfectly legal,,enormous nets,,Atlantic,, Mediterranean,,people use rods-and-reels,,killing relatively few fish,, but let’s move on.

Whew!

What I heard was: National Geographic is committed to the big picture. Conservation concerns will be part of the project. That’s their promise so let’s take them at their word. But can they weave it all it into a compelling show that will make viewers take their fingers off their remotes? That’s a taller order. The website they’re building for the series may turn out to be the better vehicle for the deeper story, and a wide range of opinion — which there will be.

So we’ll see. But after getting such a bad sense from their initial announcement, it was good to have my expectations raised.

Carl Safina has maintained my expectations of a Pew soldier fellow. Fanaticism.

Another critic, Virginia Willis, author of Bon Appetit,Y’all!, a third generation Southern cook ala Paula Dean style is absolutely outraged! Wicked Tuna: A Deal with the Devil. She feels “betrayed, heartbroken, and sick.”

From her blog, we get a sense a beginning and end of a wonderful relationship and her generational heritage with National Geographic which, until now, was a part of that.

 There were two magazines we weren’t allowed to play with when I was growing up: Southern Living and National Geographic. They were the “important” magazines. They were special. Now, an adult and a chef, I know Southern Living undoubtedly helped fuel my love of food and cooking. But, the magazine that has always been closest to my heart is National Geographic.

Southern Living and cooking also led Paula Dean into cooking some pretty tastey, but very unhealthy chow! And Diabetes.

She describes her youthful recollections and cherished memory’s of the publication, and shares some childhood history.

My grandparents loved to travel in their motor home. Often, my sister and I or a cousin would travel with them. We’d go away for weeks and months at a time every summer. My older cousin Sam went with them to Alaska, a trip I still yearn to take. The next year, they took me to Newfoundland. While on the ferry off the Nova Scotia coast I witnessed a pod of whales rolling in the deep blue water. Later, my sister and I traveled from Georgia clear across the Southwest then north up into the Canadian territory of Saskatchewan before we headed back across the entire United States to Georgia. A stack of National Geographic magazines with the familiar yellow spine and the appropriate maps for our travels, accompanied every trip. In high school, I remember having the National Geographic map of Europe tacked up on my wall; it seemed a million miles away from my red dirt road in South Georgia, but I knew I wanted to go there, and eventually, I did.

NatGeo gets dumped into the outhouse from there.

It’s an absolute disgrace. It’s wicked in the true sense of the word, evil and morally wrong.

National Geographic is capitalizing on and exploiting the very species they have declared to be on the verge of extinction.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch states consumers should “Avoid” all bluefin tuna, referencing the near collapse of bluefin populations worldwide.

Last year, the Center for Biological Diversity submitted a petition to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration seeking an endangered status for the fish, claiming the species faces possible extinction because of overfishing and habitat degradation.

Ocean Conservancy states the species is overfished.

The Pew Charitable Trust states, “Some species of tuna, such as the valuable Atlantic bluefin tuna, are dangerously over-exploited.”

Pew’s Global Tuna Conservation Campaign is urging countries fishing for tuna to “enact strong measures that will lead to the recovery of severely depleted Atlantic bluefin tuna population, including suspension of the fishery and prohibit take of Atlantic bluefin tuna on its only known spawning grounds.” The list of organizations against bluefin fishing goes on and on and on.

As a chef and food writer, I care about the food I prepare, the food I eat. I work to educate my students and readers about responsible and sustainable food. As the National Geographic Society mission states, I work to inspire people to care about the planet.

John Fahey, Chairman & CEO of the National Geographic Society should hang his head in shame.

Well, Hush my puppies! Ah do declare! Virginia (i love that name) could be a writer for the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ)

UPDATE: 1/24/12 MANY OF THE COMMENTS BELOW ARE FROM HARD-WORKING FISHERMEN WITH FAMILIES TO SUPPORT. VERY CLEARLY, WE DISAGREE ON CERTAIN POINTS. THE DIALOGUE HAS BECOME QUITE HEATED. WHILE I DO NOT APPRECIATE NAME-CALLING AND PERSONAL SLURS, I DO APPRECIATE THE PASSION AND EXPERIENCE THAT THEY BRING TO THE CONVERSATION.THANK YOU FOR READING.

I give her a lot of credit, ton’s, for her dialogue with fishermen at her blog, and there is a lot of information in her comment section that should enlighten readers about the fishery. The U S fishery, that always gets buried under “world” fishery issues. U S Fishermen are always over shadowed. Purposefully.

Between Carl, and Virginia, the oil money created Pew Charities agenda is clearly stated with many Pew recipients mentioned.

I enjoyed Virginia Willis’s recollections of traveling cross country in Gramp and Grans motor home, something Daves kids don’t have the luxury of, and viewers will get the chance to meet his kids. They are a working class family, trying to get through.

Captain Dave was active in the comment sections of these articles, and there is a difference between emotional anti fish comments and informed pro fish comments. Should you read them, you can decide for yourself how you feel about them, and the issues.

Talking to Dave, I get a sense we will all learn from this series, which will make it worth watching.

Carl Safina will learn that US Fishermen are more concerned about the tuna than he gives them credit for.

After all, if the fish were gone, the fishermen also would be gone. They want to fish forever.

Don’t worry about Carl. As long as Pew has oil money to toss at Pew Fellows, his existence is assured.

Link

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Waking up with Wicked Tuna on the Morning Buzz, WHEB the Rock station

Captain Dave Marciano, and mate, nephew Jay  Muenzner are in the studio of The Rock station WHEB  yucking it with Greg and the Morning Buzz crew.

I’m sitting here this morning trying not to wicked pissah my pants! These frigging guy’s are off the grid, Man!

“There’s no guarantee’s out they-ah” And so it begins! Click here to listen

Greg Kretschmar is a fisherman groupie. He loves them all!

He’s a big Deadliest Catch fan doing shows with them on air, and on the arena circuit.

Kretschmar just played the Barry Manilow  song Copa Cabana with some very creative lyrics about Dave, Jay and Hard Merch. I’m sure when you hear it, life will never be the same! Click here for the song

I’m typing this as I listen, and Paul Hebert just joined them by telephone. These guy’s are hilarious! Click here to listen

They were cutting it up pretty good, but there were also some serious moment’s in the un scripted round table conversation.

One thing is clear. Fame has not changed these guy’s.

When Paul describes the opportunity’s the show has delivered to them, and he highlight’s the charitable event’s, that’s a damned good indicator that they are the real deal.

It has brought opportunity to Jay. A quote from the show, “He’s getting more ass than a toilet seat”.

The chicks are crawling all over the wharf’s of Gloucester looking for him!

This Wicked Tuna crew is by far my favorite but you gotta like Paul and his crew. They were late to the show last filming season, but they are just getting ready to start filming season three, and I’ll bet we’ll see a lot more of them. I can’t wait!

I’ve met Dave in person, and  thing’s looked very bleak for this commercial fisherman, but wow, have thing’s turned around for him, and honestly, it could not have happened to a nicer guy. What you see I what you get.

In another conversation last year, he was telling me a story about a limo driver that cracked me up.

He was going to some promotional event, somewhere, and the limo pulled up to the door. He, of course, gets out like real people would, walks to the back and pulls his bag out of the trunk, prompting the driver to say, “um, you’re making me look bad.”

Dave, “well, wadda ya mean?!!”

The driver say’s looking around at the other limo drivers, and he say’s, “You’re not letting me do my job.”

The story came to mind this morning when they were talking about Dave’s “people”. Agents and planners.

Myself, I see someone who has become an ambassador for the fishermen that they so badly needed, and this too, was not planned. It just happened because of Dave’s personality, and this show, and the fan’s that follow these guy’s.

Public knowledge about US Fishery’s is sadly almost non existent, and the Wicked Tuna fans have increased awareness in discussions with friends and other fan’s.

Prior to season one, we talked on the phone, and he said he would be mentioning the regulatory short falls that affect fishermen, and he has done that. He has also shown that this fishery is a responsible fishery. By law, every US fishery is.

The show was also receiving push back by members of the environmental crowd that see fishing as something that should be eliminated, using dire predictions about the tuna stock’s that was alarmist, and not quite in tune with today’s outlook of the tuna stocks, the star’s on the show.

Back then, no one ever dreamed that this phenomenon of a show would even exist, and there would be no way to believe if it did, the show would be so successful. The reason for success is the people on the show.

Comment here

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On May 1st, the allocation for cod will be cut by as much as 78% , and drastic cuts to yellow tail flounder and other species, will all but finish off New England’s storied fishing fleet, and jeopardize the nation’s most lucrative fishery, the scallop industry.

Following these articles and reading endless proclamation’s of politicians stating their outrage, and pledging help, along with economic relief, just as was heard today from Senator Warren at the Boston Fish Rally today in the Eleventh Hour, one realizes the perverse “system” is more than broken.

It is a system of failure on a number of front’s ranging from the ineptness of multi species fishery regulators that are lawyers and accountants, mixed in with environmentalist’s that would capitalize on climate change with the exception of this issue of course, and blindly ignore it, when in reality, that is what has changed a fishery that was until two years ago, on target to be rebuilt by 2014.

As we are subjected to the opinions of expert’s in the science end, the faction everyone wants fishery management based upon, say they aren’t sure why there are such a low recruitment of stock’s, I can’t help but to listen to NEFMC council member David Goethal bring up the fact that the fish have reacted to the warming waters off our coast, in an excellent presentation at last week’s council meeting, and think about the scuba diver that found a Blue Crab in Gloucester Harbor last summer.

There is also the lack of crab this spring in the Chesapeake. Are they too marching northward?

I also cannot ignore the anecdotal evidence of an old Newfie fisherman say he has never seen so many ground fish in fifty years of being on the water!

Interesting enough, Newfoundland no longer has the infrastructure, manpower, or markets to take advantage of the situation, and as on the Cape, the fish will surely be taken care of by the 9 million harp seals they have no market for, and are under assault by the EU anti seal product people who have no common sense, or awareness of the predator/prey model of life.

The seals consume 12 to 14 Million tonnes of marketable fish which is 50 times the commercial fish harvest.

Eco based fishery management can’t come soon enough!

The environmentalists like the idea. I wonder if they realize what eco based management exactly means!

I read this today.

If I didn’t know any better, and I don’t, this sounds like the words of Regional Administrator John Bullard.

My question is, and I hope I’m not alone is, what are you clown’s talking about?

Truth is, the cod are not in free fall, but they are on the move, and just because they have moved, in what fantasy fairytale are you living in thinking fish that are not here will rebuild here?

Jeff Young, that is about the stupidest statement I’ve ever read on this subject.

John Bullard, it’s painful knowing with your lack of depth, along with your inability to think for yourself, that you are the ENGO/EDF Regional Administrator that makes Pat Kurkul look like she was competent.

And the politicians just keep saying what we want to hear, duping us into believing they can do something for fishermen, while they beat the Obama drum for Cape Wind.

I am disgusted.