Outer Cape lobster fishermen say that new federal regulations protecting whales don’t just threaten their livelihood, they threaten their lives. “This is the first (lobster) regulation where you will have wholesale civil disobedience,” predicted Orleans lobsterman Steve Smith, while transferring totes of lobsters from his skiff to his pickup truck at Snowshore Landing recently. “People just aren’t going to do it.” Read more here 08:53
NILS STOLPE: The New England groundfish debacle (Part IV): Is cutting back harvest really the answer?
While it’s a fact that’s hardly ever acknowledged, the assumption in fisheries management is that if the population of a stock of fish isn’t at some arbitrary level, it’s because of too much fishing. Hence the term “overfished.” Hence the mandated knee jerk reaction of the fisheries managers to not enough fish; cut back on fishing. What of other factors? They don’t count. It’s all about fishing, because fishing is all that the managers can control; it’s their Maslow’s Hammer. When it comes to the oceans it seems as if it’s about all that the industry connected mega-foundations that support the anti-fishing ENGOs with hundreds of millions of dollars a year in “donations” are interested in controlling. Read the article here
NOAA couldn’t care less that lobstermen will be facing more danger with the new rules. Whales before people makes perfect sense to them.