Tag Archives: Fishery Mismanagement

Mismanaged Since 1949! – A primer on fishing failures

Both the federal and municipal elections heighten our interest in whether or not fishery issues will, at last, be tackled in this province. Perhaps those running for elected positions need a primer on how our fishery was decimated over the past 70 years since Canada took over management of this resource following Newfoundland and Labrador’s Confederation entry in 1949. Hopefully, it will counter the current PR that is being disseminated by DFO, which wants Canadians to believe that it is not the department that has failed our province and our communities, but that the destruction has come from climate change, changes in water temperatures and other uncontrollable factors accounting for the demise of our once great fishery resource. There are still many, including myself, who have worked in the industry all these decades and witnessed first-hand and know full well that DFO has mismanaged our fishery since 1949. >click to read<, By Gus Etchegary, St. John’s 13:30

Can New England’s cod fishing industry survive? (How can the scientists and regulators ignore the ever increasing seal predation?!)

Gloucester, Massachusetts, grew up around cod. The waterfront teemed with boats and fishermen, heaps of fish thrashing in wire baskets. Boats were inherited from fathers and shipyards boasted of operating since 1684. As late as the 1980s, the cod were so abundant and large (30-50lb each) that the fishermen still brought in big hauls. Cod remains the state fish of Massachusetts., “We’ve been regulated out of existence,” former Gloucester fisherman Sam Sanfilippo said in 2017. “This used to be the biggest fishing community in the world. Ice companies, wharves, fish dealers, truckers, supermarkets … All through high school, I was always a fisherman. And here I am today: recycler, bike seller, furniture-maker. “I’m 50 years old and I don’t know what the hell I am.” >click to read< 07:30

Canada to ban ‘nuisance seals’ killing to keep access to U.S. market – Canada will abolish permits that allow the killing of “nuisance seals” by commercial fishermen and aquaculture in an effort to maintain access to the lucrative U.S. seafood market, Fishery management failure enacted for fish farmers >click to read<

Fishery Mismanagement: FishNet USA – Choking on good(?) intentions

From the article: We have fisheries that are on the verge of collapse while the fish stocks that support them are healthy. There is a wanton disregard for the health of the businesses that depend of fishing, a disregard that wasn’t really there until the environmental community, funded by a handful of “charitable” mega-foundations (including the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation), started to interfere in the federal fishery management process. Having healthy fish stocks, their supposed goal, is meaningless without healthy businesses benefitting from the utilization of those stocks. Today the economic effects of management actions on fishing and fishing dependent businesses are at best given lip service; the only thing that really matters when management decisions are considered is whether or not “overfishing” will be ended. The argument for the almost total focus on the health of the stocks, a concept that is exemplified by the above four sources of uncertainty from a study that was paid for – surprise, surprise! – by one of the mega-foundation that has spent many millions of dollars on “fixing” fisheries, is that healthy fish stocks are supposed to mean healthy fisheries. The present condition of the New England groundfish fishery shows how wrong that supposition is. Read the full article, click here 11:41