The board considered a petition from the Kuskokwim Salmon Management Working Group that would have enabled the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to restrict subsistence fishers to 4-inch mesh setnets, disallowing drift nets on the river. Board chair Karl Johnstone noted that there was not an emergency per say, because the board had been aware that the run this year was going to be poor. Read more here 16:11
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
