Are we really going to let them kill our ocean and our fishing way of life?
How do I explain to you the injustice forced upon fishermen and lobstermen here in New England. When I was a child, I remember going to Portland Maine to greet my father and uncle when they returned from their fishing trips. I recall the boats being tied to every wharf along the harbor 2-5 boats wide side by side along every pier. It was like this all along the major fishing ports in New England. Today, they are like ghost towns. Barely recognizable from their former glory.
Generations of fishermen are no longer fishing because of the restrictions and unfair quota from faulty science. Like I said in earlier posts, we went from 400 active boats down to 17 barely active boats. Meanwhile conservation groups will tell you that we are wiping the ocean out from overfishing. That is so wrong on so many levels, it isn’t even funny. Hard to believe New England was considered to be sustainable for haddock and lobsters.
Then fishing efforts went down and now we are no longer sustainable. The only thing that’s changed is windmills are on their way to the Gulf of Maine and the management at NOAA and NMFS are allowing it to happen. Why would they not talk to the people who have committed their lives to the job of harvesting our ocean?! Well, I can’t speak for everyone, but I have a few hypotheses.
Greed and positions of power have corrupted the system that was put forth to sustain our nations oceans using bad science. Hell. It isn’t even science. Its college degrees guessing with little to no true on-the-job experience. Fishermen have actual experience and have been around for generations to notice the changes because they were there everyday year after year.
My first is the dead bottom theory from lack of the bottom being turned over. When an area is no longer towed or the mud is not turned it goes sour, no nutrients kicked up to draw the microbes in, then fish stocks in. The southeast part of George’s was fished for yellow tail flounder and haddock for years then government became involved, and efforts decreased less boats turning the bottom over and now it’s a dessert. Meanwhile pieces of bottom like Wilkinson’s basin in the Gulf of Maine are top producers of fish and have a higher effort of all especially the SE part of Georges bank.
NOAA and NMFS like to talk about how they saved the dogfish. Dogfish swim in large super schools. Their more like an ocean vacuum cleaner eating juvenile fish and eggs. I find most times of the year I spend half my trips running away from them. They destroy the gear and the other fish when mixed together, your product looks like crap so you don’t expect to get paid for it.
There are literally whole regions where you don’t dare to venture. Gill netters were the line of defense against dogfish. It was also a large portion of their fleet’s income. We really don’t have a gillnet fleet left in New England anymore. Now the dogs are everywhere in large swarms eating all small eggs and baby fish. NOAA and NMFS cut the catchable limits this year by half. Why? I could literally load up on dogs with huge bags more so than any other species, but they cut it in half.
Efforts from fishing boats on codfish are very little as the fleet purposefully stays away from the shore and shoal water to stay away from incidentally catching dogfish. So that bottom doesn’t get turned over the other species that live in these regions are not harvested. Guess what. The largest bag of cod I’ve ever seen was right where the wind farms are going. But false accusations and a large pocketbook have changed their way of managing.
Care to take a guess what codfish love to eat? Lobsters. Lobstermen punch female lobsters and return them to the sea so they may reproduce the stock which was harvested hence the sustainability. So, what would laying large power lines under the water do to the survivability of those eggs or those of the fish stocks?
Like I said studies in Europe already said it’s a 60% mortality rate. How many deformities will take place, the magnetic field will throw the schools of fish off from their migration patterns. Throwing the ocean into unbalance. Meanwhile conservation groups will lie to the public. Telling folks, it’s overfishing, or they are killing whales, lying threw their teeth. Most these conservation groups incomes come from this green wind energy.
If there are no fishermen and lobstermen, there is no one to stop this. We could kill the Gulf of Maine by allowing this atrocity to take place. After everyone along the seaboard loses their heritage way of life and their purpose, now you can buy the green energy offshore wind power, so the ocean temperature does not rise. But the power kills all the species anyways inadvertently. Doesn’t make a lick of sense at all.
Thousands will lose their incomes, their homes, their businesses, and a nation loses its ocean. It all sounds good listening to the windmills creating jobs and clean energy. So, to create a few thousand jobs you cut a few thousand jobs. For the sake of trying to stop ocean temps rising you inadvertently kill the migration and spawning habits of the ocean which does the same thing as temperatures rising except worse the fish don’t migrate out of the area, they just die off from migration disruption caused by the power lines from the windmills.
All these things need to be addressed, but our governments ocean management team is caught up on this unrealistic idea because a few with good looking degrees in positions of power are getting rich. People getting 401ks, ridiculous salaries, the best healthcare plans and retirement, are literally making rules up to fit the elite agenda while the men and women who risk their lives every day at sea are being pushed into poverty.
I’d be curious if the folks at NOAA and NMFS even go into the offices these days. I know for damn sure they don’t talk with the men and women on the waterfront, so that’s government management for you. They don’t listen to anyone in the industry and if they do, it’s someone who doesn’t even go on the water or hasn’t for many years. It’s full-blown corruption and all of us will pay for it if we allow such nonsense to keep taking place.
It’s time for an overhaul across the management working with men and women who are on the scene every day. The ocean wasn’t put here for the elite few, it’s a God given right to all who walk on this earth so why doesn’t everyone have a say?! That’s right you the men and women who have spent your lifetimes on the ocean observing and watching have no weight over their degrees of the theoretical ocean.
Now greed and power were bestowed upon those who won’t listen because the green money has tied the governments agenda to their hips. If allowed to happen, they’ll kill the ocean in New England.
Not to mention when our own Whitehouse press conferences talk of food shortages, it sounds like a real good time for us to shut down that which was just sustainable food. Time for the truth to come out. As always, many blessings to you all. FISH ON MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS Jerry Leeman
