Daily Archives: December 17, 2012
Fisherynation Editorial – The Politcal Purging of Dr. Brian Rothschild. What is the Real Reason?
Dr. Brian Rothschild a world-renown fisheries researcher and author, Dean Emeritus of Marine Fisheries Institute, has been removed from his co-directorship of the Institute which he founded and developed over the past ten years. This move by the UMass president’s office will place the Institute under the control of the president’s office and the Institute’s co-directorship will go to the current School of Marine Science and Technology Dean, Dr. Steve Lohrenz, a champion of President’s Obama’s controversial National Ocean Policy and a former Vice-Chair of the Consortium for Ocean Leadership which partners with Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (a program devoted to deep ocean geology exploration associated with oil and gas production) .
The stated reasons for Brian Rothschild’s removal are at best flimsy and at worst they are a Kafkaesque rationale for a political purge.
“… it lacked an oversight board, a budget and annual reports and it wasn’t coordinated well enough to solicit research grants from industry, government and other institutions, said university spokesman John Hoey.”
Really? After ten successful years this Marine Fisheries Institute now isn’t coordinated well enough to get research grants? Grants coming from industry, government, and OTHER INSTITUTIONS. Now who might they be? Could it be Pew or perhaps EDF/CLF/NOAA or the Dept. of the Interior?
Dr. Rothchild’s professional status now, for some reason, isn’t high enough to be co-director of the Institute he founded and has been dean of for many years?
“It’s appropriate that the co-director needs to be a dean or someone of that administrative level,” he [Hoey] said.
Brian Rothschild has forgotten more about fisheries science than entire science departments at government and “other institutions” will ever know. He has used integrity and common sense in his work (rare commodities in the circus of fisheries science). He has benefited fishing enormously, keeping this vital local clean-food producing industry from the clutches of the ignorant faux science of self-serving bureaucrats and corrupt plutocracy-spawned NGO’s.
Dr. Brian J. Rothschild, Dean of the School for Marine Science and Technology (SMAST) of the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, has been presented with the 2011 Oscar Elton Sette Award.
That would seem to qualify Brian Rothschild as “…a dean or someone of that level”, wouldn’t it?
Soas the nuisance local fishing industry is systematically dismantled to make way for the energy industry’s March Into The Sea, it is no surprise that one of the fishing industry’s most enlightened intellectuals would be removed and the Institute that he brought to prominence revamped.
BOEM seeks interest in North Carolina offshore wind
DECEMBER 17, 2012 — The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has published a Call for Information and Nominations to gauge offshore wind industry interest in acquiring commercial wind leases in three areas offshore North Carolina and to request comments regarding site conditions, resources and other uses within the Call areas. http://marinelog.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3345:boem-seeks-interest-in-north-carolna-offshore-wind&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=195
Northeast Seafood Coalition Submits Comments to NEFMC on Groundfish Provisions
New England Fishery Management Council
Dear Rip,
The Council is only days away from taking final action on setting the annual catch limits for many groundfish stocks for fishing year 2013. The reductions under consideration by the Council are far more than numbers on a piece of paper – the reductions in the Annual Catch Limits (ACL) for 2013 pose life-altering losses for ALL small businesses that are dependent upon a fishery that is already the subject of a federal Disaster Declaration. Read the rest here
Foxy Lady II Gloucester – Overdue
Photo. Paul Frontiero
BOSTON — The Coast Guard is searching for two fishermen after they were reported overdue Monday, at approximately 8 a.m. Missing is the 50-year-old captain and 25-year-old crewman aboard the 45-foot fishing vessel Foxy Lady II, homeported in Gloucester. Watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector Boston were notified at 8:05 a.m. Monday by the captain’s girlfriend reporting that the fishing vessel had not returned as planned Saturday night, and the last time she had spoken with him Saturday between 6 a.m. and 12 a.m. via text messages. The Foxy Lady II crew had departed Saturday morning. The last known location of the Foxy Lady II is approximately 15 miles north of Provincetown, Mass. Searching are crewmembers from: Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod, Mass. (MH-60J rescue helicopter) Coast Guard Station Point Allerton Coast Guard Station Gloucester Coast Guard Station Boston Coast Guard Station Provincetown Coast Guard Cutter Spencer Anyone with information is requested to call Coast Guard Sector Boston at 617-223-3201 or via radio on VHF channel 16. As America’s maritime responder, the Coast Guard is the search and rescue mission coordinator for overdue boater cases, collaborating with federal, state and local partners. In an average year, the Coast Guard responds to more than 100 overdue cases in the Northeast.
