Colonial America’s first true industry, groundfishing, has followed the path of many others. Technology improved as the industrial revolution took hold — it kept improving afterward — and a growing population of fishermen, both domestic and foreign, became more productive as they pursued cod, haddock and other species found near the ocean floor. Yada yada yada! Read the rest here 21:20
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
I get a kick out of these historical retrospectives that begin with tales of schooner fishermen fishing with hooks. There were thousands of them in the North West Atlantic from man country’s. Talk about pressure on a recourse! A recourse one could supposedly walk across the backs of!
There are many reasons why they wouldn’t rebound if they really are beyond recovery, but with inept, and incomplete stock assessments, where is the scientific proof that says they are depleted?
To disregard two key components in the stock assessment, warmed Gulf of Maine waters, that is bringing other species into the cods territory, redistribution is a factor not included. To ignore predator/prey relations in the assessment is also a factor considering for forty years, seals and other marine mammals (the unregulated fishing community) that eat cod have increased their numbers, unimpeded by a Marine Mammal Protection Act that was created to save the whale, and the striking numbers of dogfish that feast continuously, make a mockery of fishery management, and punish the harvesters into economic destruction.
Dogfish and seals and dolphin, oh my!
Like this opinion piece, The New York Times on New England groundfish – so seemingly close but so very off target
On December 14 the Times had an article titled Water warms and cod catch ebbs in Maine by Michael Wines and Jess Bidgood. Obviously the article focused on the observed water temperature increases in the Gulf of Maine and the impact on local fishermen. After reading it one is left with the feeling that the plight of Gulf of Maine and other New England fishermen is due to some combination of overfishing and increasing water temperatures.
https://fisherynation.com/32987…
Seals are so CUTE. How about 200,000 TURDS, not quite 10,000 Luft Balloons…
Dogfish have LITTERS, they don’t lay 500,000 eggs that hatch and resemble Zoo-plankton fare for even the Forage Fish. No they are ready to prey from the get go. They eat their own Embryonic sacks or each others. Little feeding MACHINES right out of the SHUTE…