An article posted yesterday, January 2, 2012, 2013 has brought an issue to the Board of Inquiry at Fisherynation.com. Scientists fear Canada will fish bluefin tuna and other species to extinction
We are sad to report that the Board has been stumped and ask our loyal followers to present anecdotal evidence that a fish species can be fished to extinction. Or not!
Please leave your expert opinions! BH
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
My great grandfather, Clam Head, the Commodore of the great scow fleet of Green Harbor was never worried about catching the last fish. They say he couldn’t ketch the clap in a whorehouse, but, thats another story we don’t usually talk about, unless we’ve been into the cidah. This ain’t one of them days!
The Board has now become dysfunctional following this technical question raised by one of our readers.
The Scollars at Dailhousie U, Boris Worms House of Hilarious have once again, opened a can of Worms!
What say, Ye?
Atlantic Halibut,slow growing and long living, and once fished hard, could not be fished to extinction. Sturgeon,another slow growing,long living fish has not been fished to extinction. Oh,the extremely intelligent,extremely honest enviroscum tried to get an ” endangered ” listing for sturgeon so they could use it to put fisherman out of business, but unfortunately for them,as usual the extremely intelligent,extremely honest enviroscum didn’t do there homework. ( when your a trustafarian,homework wasn’t a big deal apparently) , ( but then again it would appear to the casual observer that honesty isn’t very important to the enviroscum) .Low and behold, the numbers the enviroscum tried to use to force an endangered listing,were countered and shown to be the nonsense that they were,for one gillnetter from Barnegat New Jersey, and actual honest scientists brought to light the fact that said gillnetter had tagged about 3 times as many sturgeon in a few days of fishing,than the enviroscum wanted to show existed in the entire Atlantic. Look at Loligo squid, they live there entire life in 1 year,whether they are harvested or not. Woods Hole scientists have said that it may be impossible to overfish a species that lives it’s whole life cycle in 1 year. But that did’nt matter to the good ole enviroscum. The were pushing to manage squid , ( arguably the best managed species in the Mid Atlantic) with catch scams. Oops, I mean catch shares. Being as Im just a foul mouthed punk from New York, and not from New England, every time I hear or read something that the enviroscum have said, the term ” More full of s–t than the Christmas goose” comes to mind
LOL!! Don;t hold back!
I love it when they are proved wrong, like the jellyfish article from Stolpe. Classic refutation!
I think we are all in need of the cidah. Oh shit, thats illegal too.
It seems like fishermen are all going the way of old Popcorn Sutton. He said when he was gone it’s all over. Is this our fate also. Is it all over? Will common sense ever return? If the government is involved god help us. We see how thats worked out. It’s time to REVOLT!
Between Jellyfish and tuna fish, I need a dang drink!
I heard they was gonna work on cidah up there at Dailhousie U.
Gonna take the YEEHA out of it!
Talk about skunks at a lawn party!
Us flat-landers don’t have a way with the Queens English like you New Englanders do, but I will say, I do enjoy what I see here! The more you hear about Climate Change Jane’s “jellyfish thesis”, her lib-tard science is sounding as factual as the stories coming out of an Archie & Jughead comic book.
What a hoot, Bunky!!!
Theres more bull bleep comin’ out than they got at a PBR rodeo!
I’ve asked this same question of various members of the NEFSC & other affiliations at various times over the years, & I believe I even did so while I sat at the NEFMC table. I never received a response let alone an official reply.
While we might be fishing when a species might become extinct, it won’t be the result of directed fishing, we’re just not that good at targeting them. We generally miss many more then we catch, & this has been going on for an incredibly long time now. During this time, the closest we ever brought anything to extinction are fishermen!
We definitely can & do have an impact, but it won’t be the extinction of a species.
Jim.
You got that right Jim. Fishermen are going to be extinct if we don’t get our collective shit together. Too much division and greed. Power corrupts. Too much power in all the wrong places has abolutely corrupted.
Dave Aripotch got it right.
Dave:
Let’s not forget the Barndoor Skate fiasco. Where on Fishfolk they tried to advocate for an endangered species designation for them, then they actually asked the FF community if anyone had any pictures of them? They got the plan put into place for a while, after all they were known to be a very slow growing & reproducing species, we had to prevent them from fishing caused extinction. However, it soon became evident that there were plenty of them, it was just a couple of things that we did wrong to help support their claims of near extinction.
We didn’t target the barndoors, & we didn’t land them, they never saw one, so ergo there were none! Simple, huh? At about the same time, I made one of my survey trips aboard the RV Albatross IV, & we came across more barndoors in one tow than what the Enviros wanted people to believe existed. OH, the consternation! What to do? Throw them overboard quickly so they might live? Catalogue them? Do we count them, weigh them, eviscerate them, sex them, age them, stomach contents, etc., etc.? Yes we did! We did all! Science prevailed! All except throw them over alive, that is!
And yet, in nearly less time than it takes a fruit fly to reproduce, we rebuilt a long lived (20+ years), slow reproducing species (11+ yrs to sexual maturity) from the brink of extinction, through the efforts of superior management skills, & true ENGO support.
“So he stuck in his thumb & pulled out a plum, & said what a good ENGO I am!”
Jim.
*…Environmental groups quickly responded to the results presented in the Casey and Myers (1998) article. Greenworld Organization and the Center for Marine Conservation filed petitions with the National Marine Fisheries service to 1) list the barndoor skate as an endangered species 2) immediately designate Georges Bank as critical habitat and implement large area closures and 3) list other similarly appearing species of skates as a precautionary measure (NOAA 1999). The IUCN (Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) followed suit and after initially listing the species as vulnerable, they upgraded the threat status to endangered. Thus, the barndoor skate became the focus of many conservation and extinction risk debates (Diaz-Soltera, 1999; Musick et. al., 1999; NEFSC, 2000).
*) excerpted from DEVELOPING A STOCK ASSESSMENT FOR THE BARNDOOR SKATE (Dipturus laevis) IN THE NORTHEAST UNITED STATES: page 11 ;
Todd Gedamke; 2006 Ph.D. dissertation
Well I have yet to hear of a species of fish that has been commercially exploited to extinction. I will continue to wait.
However, isn’t extinction the empitus and the main reason these groups use to vilify this industry?
As I have said before it’s a lot of bullshit. When fish populations get low enough that it’s not viable for them to be pursued commercially they are not pursued. Simple as that. When they are not pursued the rebuilding process starts all by itself. No complex regulations, no millions of dollars wasted on outcome based science pushed by our favorite engo’s. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. Can we do simple things to make it better? Absolutely!
But I would argue that its a much better bang for the taxpayer buck than what we do now. All of the revenue drained from the coffers that would have produced tax dollars in the positive realm have been converted to a negative with all of the money spent that supports this ever growing regulatory regime. This is what government does. It wastes without regard for fact or reality. Politics have destroyed this industry plain and simple. Simple rules and regs would have done a much better job and survival of the fittest would be the outcome. Are we better off with this divisive plan that has pitted the industry against each other? We have created armchair fishlords who are happy to collect their rent for doing nothing. Is this a principle that we aspire to? Is this the way it was meant to be. I guess we all have our oppinions on that relative to where you sit at the allocation trough. Fishermen were rewarded for doing what the government asked us not to do. When groundfish was seen as having a problem they kept on them wide open. That was what they wanted to do and I don’t give a damn that they did. It used to be a free country so have at it.
Others who saw the problem,
and pursued alternate fisheries have been penalized for doing what ws asked of us by not recieving allocation and this is where the heart of the division lies. Add to that this idiotic law that says the ocean has to be at maximum abundance of ALL SPECIES at the same time and presto, instant disaster.
We have been divided and conquered and the powers that be are just letting it happen. They will get to their pre determined outcome if we continue to let them. I am so tired of this bullshit!
To wait for an answer to a question that no one can answer wil prove futile.
I’m sure some agenda driven eco shill could baffle us with bull bleep over this subject.
Boris Worm and the brain trust at Dailousie U that wrote the article are welcome to answer the question, but I’m not expecting them to back up the premise.
What a great group of comments. I hope this continues.
Talking about it can be somewhat of an outlet for the rage I sometimes feel. And yes I do mean RAGE. I don’t use the term lightly.
However this can be somewhat theraputic. It allows for a minimal amount of venting. Thank you for the platform in which we can do this. Perhaps you should consider charging psychiatric fees.
Like a country doctor takes chickens for fee, I will gadly accept fish! lol
I would gladly send you a calendar for your efforts. Email me a mailing address. [email protected]
I do not believe a species can be fished to extinction without other factors playing key roles. i.e. Habitat destruction, pollution, and mismanagement of other species like veracious dogfish. The only way a species could possibly be fished to extinction is through the eco-charity idea of giving control of our fisheries to their corporate puppet masters. Large-scale industrial fishing operations can continue depleting stocks even if it is not profitable. The corporations will just write off their losses and hire lobbyists to demand congress subsidize them. As Joel indicated, small scale independent fishermen will target other species when one has been depleted and give it a chance to rebuild. The free-market can manage the seafood God blessed us with far better than any government bureaucracy.
The free-market can manage the seafood God blessed us with far better than any government bureaucracy.
Well said and spot on.
Still waiting on a case where this has happened. Tic tock tic tock