In 1991, researchers counted six seal pups on Muskeget Island just northwest of Nantucket. In 2007 they counted 2,096. That, in a nutshell, describes the trigger for this past Saturday’s Outer Cape Seal Symposium. More than 200 scientists, fishermen, and other people involved in coastal activities gathered at the Chatham High School auditorium to learn, share, and work on a process for dealing with what can, at times, seems like a fish-eating flippered invasion. continue reading
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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