Tag Archives: catch-share-scam

Editorial: Lack of fishing ‘disaster’ aid paints telling picture Gloucester Daily Times

November 14, 2012   New England

That shouldn’t come as a surprise. This “disaster,” after all, is hardly due to natural causes or “dwindling stocks,” as Blank’s declaration tried to push off on fishermen, lawmakers and taxpayers. It is chiefly due to NOAA’s chief administrator Jane Lubchenco’s job-killing catch share management system, which has enabled a relatively few large-scale fishing operations to gobble up more and more shares of the allowable catch. That change alone drove more than 20 percent of Gloucester’s smaller, family-owned boats to the sidelines in catch shares’ first year, an economic disaster in its own right, and verified through NOAA’s own figures. http://www.gloucestertimes.com/opinion/x121545279/Editorial-Lack-of-fishing-disaster-aid-paints-telling-picture

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Letter: Fish ‘reopenings’ another false premise- Captain PAUL COHAN F/V Sasquatch

October 25, 2012   New England

To the editor:

All through the fisheries “crises’” over the past 25 years, the New England Fishery Management Council has always left the offshore fleet somewhere to fish — not so with the inshore fleet, which has been admittedly overburdened by extensive inshore closures, forcing them to tie up for periods of up to six months over the course of a season. http://www.gloucestertimes.com/letters/x674151426/Letter-Fish-reopenings-another-false-premise

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Untransparent NOAA want’s to erect a lead barrior to shield observer data. WHAT ARE THEY TRYING TO HIDE???? AGAIN AND STILL????

October 25, 2012   National

Fisheries Rule Could Limit Scientific Access to Data.   What are these slimeballs up to?

By RACHEL NUWER   A draft rule proposed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration may limit public access to fisheries data collected by independent observers on fishing vessels. The agency cites protection of confidential personal and business information as the reason, but some scientists and advocates fear that such a rule will limit their ability to examine and evaluate fisheries data for research purposes.
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/25/fisheries-rule-could-limit-scientific-access-to-data/
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Rec boats oppose opening closed fishing areas – GDT

October 19, 2012   New England

Recreational fishermen and the Pew Environment Group have weighed in against a potential decision to allow commercial boats to harvest from two fishing areas that have long been closed to commercial operations………Pew Environment Group’s opinion aligns with a number of non-government organizations including Conservation Law Foundation, the Nature Conservancy and Earthjustice, but not all of them. But the Environmental Defense Fund has given a conditional endorsement of the policy of opening closed areas where fishing had been barred to impede mortality……..Tower and a number of other recreational captains argued that the reopening of the mortality closures within the larger confines of the three major closed areas in the Northwest Atlantic would benefit big boats but provide little or no help to the day boats………..Pew Environment Group’s Peter Baker made much the same point in an email. He attributed the movement to the trawlers or draggers because “it seems to be the draggers from Associated Fisheries of Maine and their sometime allies at the Northeast Seafood Coalition that have argued most strenuously to open closed areas to fishing.” Read more.

http://www.gloucestertimes.com/topstories/x1133187726/Rec-boats-oppose-opening-closed-fishing-areas

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Fish council eyes lifting of closures- Conservation Law Foundation,Earthjustice, Nature Conservancy Will Sue

October 16, 2012   New England

Fishery council member David Goethel, a Hampton, N.H., groundfisherman, said mortality closures have had enough time — 16 years — to prove themselves a wellspring for the stocks.

“We should be overflowing with groundfish; instead we have a disaster,” said Goethel, who said the closed areas should be opened.

http://www.gloucestertimes.com/topstories/x1684126854/Fish-council-eyes-lifting-of-closures

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Fraud, fish, and the blind IRS

October 15, 2012   National

Remember the LA Times story, “the fisherman and the tax man” (5/30/10) about fishermen seeking, and being denied, disaster relief after the BP oil spill? “I worked for an uncle last year who paid me in cash. The BP guy wanted my tax statements, but how can I pay taxes if everything I earned was in cash?” How did the IRS answer that question? Did it examine boat owner records, find any reporting violations, any evidence of worker  misclassification, the focus of the White House Task Force on the Middle Class that same year? No. The story isn’t that some bayou deck hands don’t pay taxes, the real story is that the IRS doesn’t enforce the tax laws in the fishing industry……….Read More

http://flamingofishing.newsvine.com/_news/2012/08/26/13488207-fraud-fish-and-the-blind-irs?threadId=3589966&commentId=71070340#c71070340

 

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Letter: Trip limits would make fisheries worse Captain PAUL COHAN F.V. Sasquatch, Gloucester

October 15, 2012   New England

To the editor: Wasn’t one of the big selling points for catch shares — or as I call it, catch scams —  the elimination of trip limits and their inherent discards?

So now NOAA and the enviros are talking about re-instating “inshore” trip limits to solve a problem of their own making,

when they can’t even differentiate between George’s Bank cod and Gulf of Maine cod when it comes down to where they were landed or caught.

This represents a giant step backwards. It is the worst of both worlds. and once again the smaller day boats will pay the bill.

http://www.gloucestertimes.com/opinion/x674146257/Letter-Trip-limits-would-make-fisheries-worse

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Economic hardship being imposed on fishermen’s families because of four turtles (Actually it is because of bureaucratic nonsense) The Beaufort Observer

October 13, 2012   Mid Atlantic

Here’s the story. Somebody, typically a liberal group with a guilty conscience, decides the sky is going to fall unless the government “does something.” So they produce some evidence that things are falling from the sky and scream that we must have new laws and regulations to prevent a catastrophe. They ram through the laws and regulations and then the bureaucrats begin to enforce them, typically using some form of a permit system with stiff penalties for even minor violations. Depending on the disposition and attitude of the bureaucrats citizens begin to experience more and more difficulty getting permits, using their property or a public resource. The bureaucracy of tax-payer funded government regulators and enforcers grows and grows ,,,,,Read More http://www.beaufortobserver.net/Articles-NEWS-and-COMMENTARY-c-2012-10-02-263016.112112-Economic-hardship-being-imposed-on-fishermens-families-because-of-four-turtles.html

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State official eyes impact of big boats inshore GDT

October 12, 2012   New England

David Pierce said his concern is that, in the unregulated commodity trading system now in its third year, the big boats have the ability to acquire and accumulate an unlimited quantity of catch shares in Gulf of Maine Cod, and can monopolize landings in a stock whose vitality was found last year to be dramatically weaker than believed in an earlier, 2008 benchmark assessment. http://www.gloucestertimes.com/local/x1133184143/State-official-eyes-impact-of-big-boats-inshore

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Cod war returns to Middle Bank – The Big Boys are Pounding the SNOT Out of it. ABOLISH CATCH SHARE RIGHT F* CKING NOW!

October 11, 2012   New England

A large number of big commercial trawlers — 70 feet or more in length — from Gloucester and Boston have been drawn this week to the nearby inshore grounds of Middle Bank in pursuit of the season’s first pulse of cod, combing areas that are the usual domain of smaller, independent day boats from multiple ports, several sources told the Times Wednesday…….But since the advent in May 2010 of catch share fishing, predicated on the trading of allocated fishing rights between gear types and boat sizes — allowed to members of sectors or fishing cooperatives — the taking of inshore cod by offshore boats has been a persistent theme and complaint by dayboat fishermen that the only available source of their harvest and income has been subject to plunder by boats of a much larger scale…….A critical element in the pulse fishing for cod on Stellwagen was the elimination of daily catch limits for boats which entered sectors; these boats were given allocations and encouraged to catch as much as they were allowed at any time. The efficiency of the new system was one of its prime selling points.http://www.gloucestertimes.com/topstories/x674144460/Cod-war-returns-to-Middle-Bank

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Fishing panel delays call on catch limits GDT- My Commentary.

October 1, 2012   New England

NOAA’s New England Fishery Management Council has deferred at least until November recommending deep reductions in next year’s allowable catch of most groundfish, a move that would constrict landings even further in an industry that has been declared a federal economic disaster from Maine to New York……….

Mayor Mitchell is right on the money of skepticism regarding the shabby science dictating this tragic fishery management disaster.

Any layman that listened to the three-day council meeting will easily recognize the flaws in the science, from not looking at predatory fish affecting cod-fish stocks, to the weakness of ocean data collection of Bigelow, as one gentleman defended Bigelow with the exception of the survey not hitting enough stations.

The subject of side by side towing with industry vessels was rejected as an indicator, and after some thought, I agree. It is not the answer.

Collaborative Research.

The answer is to remove Bigelow from collecting Trawl data for surveys, and totally implement industry vessels manned with fishermen and scientists in numbers that can hit enough stations, at the right times to supply the data to the statisticians that do the calculations. They are seldom wrong.

They  can polish a turd until it shines like a diamond, but ya know what? It’s still a turd.

The ENGO lawyers expressed outrage likened to a liberal when EBT cards for illegal aliens being are questioned, and threatened lawsuits that would stall fishing on May 1st when the discussion of opening twenty year old temporary closed areas was brought up.

They as much as anyone else have created this fishery management disaster with their “contributions” to fishery mismanagement.

You clowns want to be “stakeholder”/ “partners”? Well then. Take responsibility for your participation in the process. Filing lawsuits ain’t it Pete and re Pete.

Lawsuits??? Please.

If there is any outrage about opening the closed areas, it is they would only be open to sector boats?

ABOLISH CATCH SHARES NOW!

http://www.gloucestertimes.com/topstories/x240471207/Fishing-panel-delays-call-on-catch-limits

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EDF and Catch Shares

September 6, 2012   National

Sometimes you can’t help but laugh out loud while doing research. I recently had one of those experiences.

Check out the About.com Guide for “The Environmental Defense Fund and Catch Shares”

EDF influence has rewritten the government’s policies on fisheries management.

The EDF is a strong proponent of catch shares. The large and influential organization is one of the main reasons NOAA has adopted catch shares as its new fisheries management mechanism.

The following passage had me laughing so hard, I almost cried.

In 2009, former EDF Vice-Chairwoman Dr. Jane Lubchenco was named the Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and NOAA Administrator by President Barack Obama. She is the head of NOAA. Curiously, her tenure at EDF is omitted from her extensive resume in her 500 word biographical information on her NOAA Web page.

Gee, I wonder why that’s been omitted? ;)

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Sometimes the mask slips

August 31, 2012   National

When Jane Lubchenco was appointed as the head of NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) in 2009, I believe that it enabled an important part of a decades long plan to transform America into just another member of the global community, from the inside. This has enabled these “Fabian Socialists” to accelerate the process of destroying the commercial fishing industry in the USA, to further their long-term vision of sustainable  international fisheries.

Dr. Lubchenco has demonstrated a total disinterest in the economic crisis that she has created in places like Gloucester Mass, and all along the coasts of New England and across this great country. She has gone to great lengths to completely avoid addressing the issues that are important to our fishermen.

In 2011, she declined to testify at a U.S. Senate subcommittee invitation in Boston called “How is NOAA managing funds to protect the domestic fishing industry”. Makes sense if you look at the facts (as we have), and find that she isn’t interested in protecting the domestic fishing industry at all. Dr. Lubchenco has always been looking at a bigger picture.

I’d like to highlight some recent comments that she made at a RFMO (Regional Fisheries Management Organizations) conference in Belgium on June 1st, 2012. This doesn’t happen often, as she tends to avoid the spotlight, but on this day it seems that her mask slipped. She made numerous comments that represent (what I believe to be) her true motivation for the decisions that she makes at NOAA.

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