Council for Sustainable Fishing – Efforts to decrease the number of charter and headboats

I’m sure you’ve seen those horror movies where despite repeated attempts to kill the monster, it always comes back to life and wreaks havoc.

Charter and headboat operators are now living one of these horror movies as the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council once again moves forward with limiting the number of for-hire snapper-grouper permits, this time through Snapper-Grouper Amendment 47.

And now the SAFMC is not just talking about limiting the number of charter and headboats, they are now talking about decreasing the number.> Click here to read the amendment<.

The SAFMC is now taking written comments on the amendment. I urge you to click here today and tell the SAFMC that you are strongly opposed to for-hire limited entry. Please make your comments no later than August 17th.

Click here to read the comments.

The SAFMC keeps pushing limited-entry despite the fact that the number of snapper-grouper for-hire permits has remained virtually unchanged over the last 10 years and for-hire fishing effort in federal waters is 22 percent below the effort in 2007.

This has nothing to do with fishery sustainability. A limited-entry fishery is the first step toward a catch share fishery, one that will set up a “stock market” for permits.

Just >click here to read the comments< from the National Association of Charterboat Operators, which describes the for-hire limited entry disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and states that the “limited entry program has resulted in an additional stock market for fisheries” and is “working to eliminate for hire vessel owners from the industry.”

And now the SAFMC is considering not just limiting, but decreasing the number of charter and headboats.

Please >click here today to access< the SAFMC online comment form and tell them you’re opposed to for-hire limited entry. These “on the record” comments are crucial. Please make your comments no later than August 17th.

Thank you in advance for your efforts!
Tom Swatzel
Executive Director
Council for Sustainable Fishing

P.S. The Council for Sustainable Fishing is a non-profit advocacy group that relies on membership dues to operate. Please help us continue our fight for fishermen and fishing communities by clicking here and joining today. Already a member – please consider a higher membership level to help. Thank You!
Contributions or gifts to the Council for Sustainable Fishing are not tax deductible as charitable contributions. However, they may be tax deductible as ordinary and necessary business expenses.

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The New England groundfish debacle (Part III): who or what is at fault? Nils E. Stolpe/FishNet

It took me a while to decide how to most accurately describe the situation that has been visited upon the New England fishing communities that are and since colonial times have been dependent on the groundfish fisheries.

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

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