Tag Archives: ENGO
Scottish fishing chiefs lash out over conservation group Oceana’s ‘fake news’
The Aberdeen-based Scottish Fishermen’s Federation (SFF) has accused conservation group Oceana of spreading “fake news”. Oceana is today publishing a report calling for a “legally binding deadline to end overfishing”. And it claims to have the backing of nearly eight in 10 adults in Britain for stricter limits on catches in UK waters. According to Oceana, which also wants to see a ban on supertrawlers more than 100m (328ft) long, half the UK’s key fish 
populations were “overfished or critically low” last year. SFF’s top team believe the conservation group’s latest report is designed to disrupt annual negotiations of overfishing quotas for 2025. Oceana is “wasting everyone’s time with a series of cherry-picked statements, reliance on obsolete science and creative wording to perpetuate a narrative of gloom and doom about fisheries that bears little relation to reality”, the fishing industry body explained. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 20:01
ENGO Sues UK Government Over International Fishing Quotas
UK’s environmental group Blue Marine Foundation has sued the British government for setting fishing quotas above sustainable levels. The charity claims that the government has set fishing quotas for more than half of UK stocks at levels exceeding what scientists recommend. The group says that this is illegal under post-Brexit fishing law, which requires that the management of UK’s fisheries is based on the best available scientific advice. The organization estimates that the sum of annual quotas for mackerel and the resulting catches have exceeded scientific advice by an average of 44 percent since 2010. This case comes days after a report by Oceana UK released last week, revealed that industrial vessels suspected of using harmful fishing methods, such as bottom-trawling, spent more than 33,000 hours in UK’s marine protected areas in 2023. >more, >>click to read<< 11:01
First permits issued for swordfish captains in California
The first commercial fishing permits for the use of deep-set buoy gear in the swordfish fishery in the US state of California were issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service on September 15, marking a significant transition from the large nets that drifted off the West Coast. Gillnets will finally disappear by 2027, replaced mostly by deep-set buoy gear — vertical lines about 150 fathoms long, with a flagpole with a light or radar reflector on top and a bug- and sinker to keep the line anchored vertically. Main lines usually have one to three round hooks with a light attached to shine below the thermocline in 20 to 70 meters (65 to 230 feet) of California water. The gear is designed to be actively maintained, with strike indicators on the surface to alert anglers when a fish is present. >>click to read << 16:23
Cleethorpes PETA ad compares eating fish to ‘eating a cat’
Animal rights charity PETA has put up a new billboard near a Cleethorpes chippy telling locals that ‘eating fish is like eating a cat’. The new advert is located at 145 Grimsby Road in Cleethorpes. The neighbouring town of Grimsby is a key player in the UK’s seafood processing industry, and was once the fishing capital of the world. The striking billboard shows a smiling fishmonger holding a limp fish from one angle and a dead cat from another. >click to read< 14:30
ENGO recommends against consuming lobster over danger to whales
Seafood Watch, a program out of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, says entanglement in fishing gear is the leading cause of death of the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale population, and US and Canadian lobster fisheries aren’t doing enough to prevent it. Jennifer Dianto Kemmerly is vice president of global ocean conservation at the Aquarium. “We really want consumers and businesses to be aware of how dire the situation is,” Kemmerly said. Meanwhile, the international conservation group Oceana blamed the National Marine Fisheries Service for failing to update safeguards that would protect both right whales and lobster fisheries. To remove the red listing, it recommends using ropeless gear, expanding seasonal closures where whales are present, and improving transparency and monitoring of fishing vessels. >click to read< 18:11
House GOP Investigates Alleged Financial Ties Of US Green Groups To Putin
The GOP committee members wrote to three groups Thursday, the League of Conservation Voters, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and the Sierra Club, demanding more information about their financial ties to the California-based Sea Change Foundation. The Republicans cited reports that Russian President Vladimir Putin has funneled money through Sea Change to the environmental groups, according to the letters sent to the groups’ leaders. The NRDC vehemently denied the allegations Thursday, saying the reports Republicans referenced were false. >click to read< 10:16
Tanker/Whale Strike Update: ENGO says number of whales killed by ships each year in the 1000s
We posted a story about a 32-foot whale carcass was found wedged on the bow of a Japanese tanker as it pulled into harbour. Shocking images, wasn’t much there. The article today has information that is useful to commercial fishermen trying to survive the ridiculous, engo inspired rules regarding fishery restrictions, and rule changes. Ship strikes are known to be one of the leading causes of death for endangered and vulnerable whale populations, according to WWF. Michael Fishbach, executive director and co-founder of the Great Whale Conservancy, an environmental NGO based in North Carolina, told Insider that a dozen whales are killed by a ship for each one that is recorded. >click to read< 10:46
Court Finds American Lobster Fishery Requires Incidental Take Statement for Impacts on North Atlantic Right Whale
As commercial fisheries across the United States continue to adjust operations in the face of new legal requirements, such as the shift from single-species to ecosystem-based management, one challenge in particular has dominated the courts: the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Recent court decisions have vacated commercial longline fishing permits in federal waters off the coast of California that could endanger the Pacific leatherback sea turtle and restored prohibitions on gillnet fishing gear in a known New England feeding ground for the endangered North Atlantic right whale. This trend continued on April 9, when a federal district court judge in Center for Biological Diversity,,,The American lobster fishery is managed cooperatively by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and NMFS, >click to read< 14:45
The Conservation Law Foundation petition’s NOAA to prohibit Atlantic cod fishing
The petition, filed with NOAA regional offices in Gloucester and with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross in Washington, invokes the first article of the Magnuson Stevens Act, the law governing federal fisheries, which stipulates that overfishing must end immediately and that the fish stock be rebuilt as quickly as possible. (MMPA has wrecked that!) “There’s a fairly damning record of the agency (NOAA Fisheries, also known as the National Marine Fisheries Service) approving (New England Fishery Management) Council plans it should have known were not likely to end overfishing, and were not likely to put cod stocks on any rebuilding timeline,” said Peter Shelley, (who supports him) senior counsel for the foundation. >click to read< The image is cod, destroyed and wasted by seals, 08:35
IFAW Officials Disappointed with Lobsterman Association’s Position on Whale Issue
The Yarmouth Port-based International Fund for Animal Welfare is expressing disappointment for the Maine Lobstermen’s Association decision to withdraw its support for the Take Reduction Team Agreement concerning right whales. The association withdrew support last week due to what it calls “serious flaws in the data” presented during the agreement process.,, The MLA review of the data also found that current whale protection measures have been effective. Changes to the right whale plan in 2009 and 2014 resulted in a strong downward trend in the incidence of entanglement cases involving U.S. lobster gear, from seven cases prior to 2010 to only one case since then. >click to read< 12:40
100% fishing monitoring is unnecessary, David Goethel
I would like to correct some misconceptions and rebut some of the statements made by Ms. Johanna Thomas in her Aug. 2, 2019 opinion, Monitoring will help improve New England’s fisheries. >click to read< Ms. Thomas sites the West coast Groundfish fleet as a success story. That is not the case as told by the fishermen on the West coast. She also fails to mention that 50% of the fleet was bought out in a $60 million-plus dollar buy out prior to the implementation of catch shares. This alone should have rebuilt stocks. >click to read< 21:28
Are the ENGO’s pushing propaganda to pressure your Representatives and sway the public against you?
From the article: What evidence is there that Maine contributes towards right whale entanglement? The Maine congressional delegation has also suggested that the state’s fisheries do not contribute to right whale entanglements. Yet, Maine has almost three million licensed traps and logic dictates the high density of vertical lines associated with those traps poses a significant risk of entanglement. An encounter between a whale and even a single vertical line can result in a deadly entanglement. >click to read< Who supports these ENGO’s, anyway!
“Fish Wars” or a Regime Shift in Ocean Governance? Nils E. Stolpe
The reasons for Big Oil’s (now more accurately Big Energy’s) focus on fisheries – and on demonizing fishing and fishermen – has been fairly obvious since a coalition of fishermen and environmentalists successfully stopped energy exploration on Georges Bank in the early 80s. Using a handful of ocean oriented ENGOs as their agents, the Pew Charitable Trusts and other “charitable” trusts funded a hugely expensive campaign that the domestic fishing industry is still suffering from, but that campaign has paid off handsomely to the entities that participated in or funded it.,, If anyone wonders why one of the founders of Microsoft might be interested in supporting research by Daniel Pauly, from an article in the NY Times last week,,, and retired admiral and Chairman of the Board of the U.S. Naval Institute James G. Stavridis had a column in the September 14 Washington Post titled The Fishing Wars Are Coming. click here to read the article 14:48
Oceana going overboard on fish fraud with “misleading hyperbole”, distorts its findings by design
The National Fisheries Institute (NFI) is calling into question both the findings and motives of the latest fish fraud study by Oceana, a global environmental group. The action marks a break between the two groups since they previously were largely in sync with one another over the worldwide problem of fish fraud, which is where lesser-value species are marketed as higher-value ones. NFI claims that by finding 20 percent of all seafood mislabeled globally, Oceana’s latest report is both overstating the problem and unnecessarily calling for an expanded regulatory bureaucracy when enforcement of existing laws is all that is needed. NFI, a trade association representing the seafood industry with a core mission of sustainability, charges that the environmental group has turned to “misleading hyperbole.” “Oceana’s focus on the most often mislabeled species distorts its findings by design. It is a common technique that ironically perpetuates a fraud on the readers of these reports,” the NFI statement adds. Read the story here 16:56
Leo “The Hypocrite” DiCaprio flies 8,000 miles in private jet to accept ‘green award’
Oscar-winner Leonardo DiCaprio flew an additional 8,000 miles from France to New York and back to accept an award on climate change. The actor suffered a massive blow on his carbon footprint when he took one jet from the Cannes Film Festival to New York City to attend the green awards ceremony, before hopping on board a second jet for a fund-raising event back in Cannes the following evening. The New York awards ceremony was the Riverkeeper Fishermen’s Ball at Chelsea Piers, where he was honoured by the clean-water advocacy group and fellow actor Robert De Niro for his efforts to raise awareness on climate change. Read the story here 13:49
NatureVest – When Dogs and Pigs Breed
The Nature Conservancy, the worlds largest ENGO, and JP Morgan the worlds largest bank have created NatureVest, a multi billion dollar fund that essentially carry’s out Agenda 21 goals of removing humans from half of the planet, making a 25 % buffer zone at the edge. They do this by inserting themselves as a default governing mechanism for the wild lands that they acquired via debt a swap. They lend money to already broke nations and people, and when they can’t pay, they let the the loan go in exchange for rights to the best wild lands and fishing rights. Read about it here
Sea scallops close to ‘sustainable’ MSC label ? Big ENGO deal. NOT!
NEW BEDFORD — An international environmental group is a step away from declaring the Atlantic scallop fishery as “sustainable,” properly managed and in no immediate danger of overfishing..Seafood consultant Jim Kendall, a former scalloper, said he had mixed feelings about the ruling and the association with the council. He noted that the council is an environmental group that collects fees to obtain its seal. Kendall said it is questionable to pay often adversarial environmental groups for their approval, when “government regulations in the U.S. are the official seal of sustainability”. more@southcoasttoday 08:35
A convenient truth: 90% of the tunas are gone! The ENGO battle cry of sensationalism based on a known flawed Myers/Worm analysis.
Many environmental groups embraced it as proof that all tunas, not just the bluefins, were in serious trouble. On the other hand, tuna scientists who were actually conducting stock assessments, especially for tropical tunas knew immediately that the 90% number was totally wrong. [email protected]
Boston Seafood Show Science Forum Suggests ENGOs are Misleading Public on Sustainability
NEWS ANALYSIS by John Sackton SEAFOOD.COM – The dominant view expressed by leading fisheries scientists at the Boston meeting was that the NGOs have a profound misunderstanding about the scientific basis of sustainability. The contrast between the scientific message about sustainability and the actions of the three most powerful environmental organizations in fisheries (World Wildlife Foundation, the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership, and the Marine Stewardship Council) could not have been made more clear. continued
Fred Krupp Shameless 1% Shyster. Your Catch Share crap is Flat Out Lie.
In this 10-minute talk from Techonomy 2011 in Tuscon, Ariz., Fred Krupp, President of the Environmental Defense Fund, discusses how new techonoloy is helping to monitor and protect fisheries from over fishing. Data collection using video cameras and powerful software is helping local fisheries in Canada sustain their fish populations by calculating yearly fishing limits for fishermen.
http://techonomy.com/2012/08/fred-krupp-on-using-data-and-tech-to-prevent-overfishing/
Fred, I think the government should install a camera in your bathroom and monitor how many times per day you pull your gear.
Chesapeake Bay Foundation Continually Misrepresents Status of Menhaden – using biased phrasing in their articles
In reference to menhaden, both articles uses the phrase “the most important fish in the sea,” which is frequently used without proper explanation. Originating from Rutgers University English Professor, Dr. H. Bruce Franklin’s book, The Most Important Fish in the Sea, the phrase stems from entirely qualitative judgements made by the author. There is no scientific evidence supporting the hyperbolic statement that any one species of fish is “most important,” and promulgating this idea represents only the authors’ opinion, rather than any scientific consensus.
Although the Epes article states that “The Chesapeake Bay Foundation is pushing for fair and reasonable limits to rebuild the menhaden population,” the organization does not provide a similar description of the status of the menhaden stock, using biased phrasing in their articles to make the species seem in worse condition than it actually is.
The Pew Dog and Greenpeace’s anti-Sealord spoof.
My friend, jj the fisherman, is very creative, and a pretty smart SOB. He creates legitimate satire. You will find plenty more at his column. Click show more to find it all. Lots of photo and great articles. http://jjthefisherman.newsvine.com/
It appears that Greenpiece finds it a legitimate method of communicating their anti fishing view, of which ending fishing would probably find them destitute, as it is apparent they are on a path of unsustainability by over-exploiting fishermen!
The greedy ENGOs just don’t understand their greed to hunt the last fisherman to extinction will cause an unprecedented collapse of their bread and butter revenue raising target.
Rage erupts over Greenpeace’s anti-Sealord spoof
“Satire has long been used as a way of getting messages across. We’re not criticising the workers that feature in this ad. Those in the fishing industry here and in the Pacific deserve to have a future in the fishing industry, and they’re entitled to make a living from the sea, but Sealord itself is putting that at risk by its destructive catch methods,” he affirmed. Read More.
http://fis.com/fis/worldnews/worldnews.asp?l=e&ndb=1&id=55853
This NOPC corporate shill is using the old eco-champion marketing strategy – and its working! Still!
This NOPC corporate shill is using the old eco-champion marketing strategy in order to privatize and industrialize the public trust ocean.
NOPC, BOEM, NWF, are immorally using the ploy of promising much needed clean energy to allay global warming,
while actually doing the bidding of an historically corrupt wind (and ultimately oil) industry.
Notice especially in the forwarded NOPC email flyer below the section entitled: ENGO Report Includes National Ocean Policy-Related Recommendation
How the world’s oceans could be running out of fish – BBC
Global fish stocks are exploited or depleted to such an extent that without urgent measures we may be the last generation to catch food from the oceans. It has been some time since most humans lived as hunter-gatherers – with one important exception. Fish are the last wild animal that we hunt in large numbers. And yet, we may be the last generation to do so. http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120920-are-we-running-out-of-fish/1
Three of these articles this week! The catch share whores are working overtime!
Peter Shelley’s (as usual) bogus arguments on the AUDIO: Federal Court Appeal Against NOAA – Thanks Dicky
This is regarding CLF lawyer Peter Shelley’s intervention in the Amendment 16 Lawsuit Appeal Oral Arguments Hearing on September 5, 2012. In general, the defendants’ arguments were embarrassingly lame and disingenuous, but discussed below is a particularly outstanding contention of Shelley’s and deserving of a mention.,,,,,,,,,Read more in the comment section.
From Savingseafood.org
Audio of the proceedings follows:
1 – James F. Kavanaugh, Jr. representing New Bedford, Gloucester, and the numerous named individual plaintiffs
2 – Stephen Ouellette, representing the American Alliance of Fishermen and their Communities, New Hampshire Commercial Fishermen’s Association, Richard Grachek and David Aripotch
3 – Patrick Flanigan, representing James Lovgren
4 – Joan Pepin, representing the Federal Defendant-Appellees
5 – Peter Shelley, for the Conservation Law Foundation, an intervening defendant.
6 – James F. Kavanaugh, Jr. closing statement
Environmentalism is Dead?
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