“State of Our Halibut” discussed at last weekend’s inaugural Homer Halibut Festival – It’s not good.

September 25, 2015 North Pacific

From a fun run to a fish fry to a halibut cabaret, most of the weekend was a celebration of Homer’s iconic resource. But much of the discussion at Saturday’s “State of Our Halibut” lecture series at the Alaska Islands and Ocean Visitor Center was serious and centered around a major issue: the total mass of Pacific halibut is shrinking and no one is entirely sure why or what to do about it. That’s not entirely new information. Nearly ever year of the past decade, the annual survey reported decreases in both Pacific halibut population and biomass,,, Read the rest here 09:15

Homer Halibut Festival, International Pacific Halibut Commission, “State of Our Halibut”

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The New England groundfish debacle (Part III): who or what is at fault? Nils E. Stolpe/FishNet

It took me a while to decide how to most accurately describe the situation that has been visited upon the New England fishing communities that are and since colonial times have been dependent on the groundfish fisheries.

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

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