Once again, Lu Dochtermann tells it like it is
North Pacific Fishery Management Council — 224th Plenary Session
June 1 – 9, 2015 — Centennial Hall; Sitka, Alaska
Ludger Dochtermann — Public Comment for the Official Record
E-submit: [email protected]
C2 – HAL 15-023 Final Action – BSAI Halibut PSC Limits
May 26, 2015, Tuesday
Secretary Pritzker, Chairman Hull and NPFMC members:
My name is Ludger Dochtermann, holder of halibut shares in the BSAI. Again, please cutback BSAI trawl halibut ‘bycatch limits’ by at least 50%, as I’ve suffered over 70% cutbacks.
I’m currently fishing in the Gulf of Alaska for halibut aboard the F/V North Point, working our tails off because the fishing is tough, and we’re running out of bait and being forced to burn up expensive extra fuel. We are first hand witnesses to the harmful impacts excessive ‘Bycatch’ of halibut by bottom trawlers have caused; and to migratory stock and economic losses incurred.
You know this. You know what, and who caused it. You know about oversized nets, massive horsepower and no trawl speed limits, hidden ‘trawl path mortality’ and about unobserved discards. It is you. The NPFMC, who has failed to stop those Johnny Come Latelies who have encroached upon our historical fisheries in recent decades, destroying our century longer halibut fishery. You know where their fish go and about the offshore profits they hide.
They are outlaws! These trawlers go out for short trips and massively devastate our fishery by hard plowing the bottom with oversized nets: fast and furiously. They should have to work on longliners and see what a tough fishery is like, because they just sit on their lazy butts watching their electronic targeting screens and haul up huge catches full of our future generating juvenile halibut and treat all others’ fisheries with a pillaging and slaughtering attitude not unlike the Cambodian Killing Fields. They willfully operate a Fish Genocide!
“I cannot separate my morals.*” How do you? At the top of the stack is the survival of halibut, sustainability and conservation. Our incomes come second to that, for without the former, we can’t attain the latter.
This bottom trawling destruction is nuts! And you are crazy if you don’t immediately put a stop to it. Why does the government let them do it? Why did they finance these ocean raping vessels at low NMFS loan rates? Do you not know how many good family fishermen and coastal communities you have harmed? Why not make each of the Amendment 80 participants show their faces, go on the federal record, and grill them long and hard about their practices?
Every fisherman knows of the moral decrepitude and irresponsibility of working on a trawl deck. Good moral fishermen, caring of all the fish in the sea, steadfastly refuse to participate in those sea bottom rapes. They are tired of politics and money destroying the halibut and other stocks, at the hands of these outlaws. You know this, it is a worldwide fact. Trawling practices like that should be internationally forbidden.
We are fed up with the lies many Amendment 80 bottom trawlers are putting forth. Strike their lies from the record, and prosecute them for the false information. And we are tired of the Washington and Oregon delegates supporting the larger —often foreign serving— companies involved and being careless of our Alaskan communities and their historical rights.
It is not a euphemistic “bycatch” as if it is all innocent and incidental. They are deliberate. It is PROHIBITED SPECIES CATCH, not even an abbreviated PSC. Call it what it is. Stop being bycatch tolerant administrators and manage the fisheries, plural. Base it on the science of conservation and find some way to measure the real socio-economic costs and benefits.
This issue cannot be resolved with tolerance of bycatch, with the stupidity of “incentives” (they need disincentives like the criminals they are). This issue will not be handled with avoidance attempts (gear modifications dragging slowly along while destruction continues) that take years to implement — nor with abstinence promises. You must erase the conditions which give rise to PROHIBITED SPECIES CATCH.
To know trawlers, just look at the recent comments in the Gulf of Alaska after the May 3 shutdown due to their failure to stay under the Chinook caps. They started blaming everyone else. Worse yet, they suggested that those are not local Chinook, that they are migratory, Canadian and West Coast and a lot of hatchery salmon. As if they should be allowed to kill as many as possible – inattentively mindful of the harm to other states and nations, other rights holders and their investments. They act deliberately, wanting salmon and halibut genocide.
These trawl outlaws have no moral compass whatsoever. There are, as you know, no ‘unforeseen consequences’ that warrant further openings after they, themselves, shut down their own fishery. In the BSAI, there are also no unforeseen circumstances too, Amendments and management plan language aside: you don’t need to wait to disincentivize resource crimes. We, you, all know this. But you allow it to go on. I will not recap the well-known numbers of halibut destroyed, and the failures of the NPFMC to have long lowered trawler bycatch limits responsibly in line with cutbacks to the directed halibut harvest total catch limits.
I demand action, punishment for the guilty not incentives for outlaws, and that you swing your moral compasses to the correct alignment. *- In the words of Martin Luther King, “I cannot segregate my morals!” How can you? Vote very carefully and take strong action against this PROHIBITED and unwarranted destruction by the outlaw Johnny Come Latelies.
Ludger Dochtermann, F/V Stormbird & F/V North Point
P.O. Box 714; Kodiak, Alaska 99615 Tel: 907.486.5450 [email protected]
Lot’s of crying here but let’s look at the truth. What is being proposed is taking a quota from one fishery and giving it to another. It has nothing to do with increasing the halibut stock but rather all about money. Who’s the outlaw?
Me thinks the halibut stock will continue to diminish unless this issue of by catch isn’t dealt with in a reasonable manner. And the notion of quota being by catch quota is a little disturbing. By catch quota?
Also, why should all the conservation be saddled on the small boat halibut fleet?
It’s gonna be very interesting to watch the fur fly!
Mr. Fits, please stop with the Wurlitzer of talking point untruths already.
Think logically, and for all people involved, not your faction. Nice word twisting, but lies are lies and lies on the federal Council record violate MSA 307 section 1857 (i) Prohibited Acts: False testimony. A felony! And we went on the federal record that the Amendment 80 players who paid for a 23,000 signature petition to Gov. Inslee of Washington, had violated that law and should be investigated and likely prosecuted.
Also, the First Amendment protects only the right to express an opinion, not opinions themselves, especially if they are not factual. This is not “an allocation issue” nor reallocation, as trawlers were never allocated halibut as a target or secondary target species.
Whomever is brainwashing you, we don’t care at this point. We simply ask you to start thinking for yourself, with integrity, truthfulness, and respect for other commercial fishermen, too.
Once again: There is no such thing as trawlers having an incidental catch RIGHT to destroy massive non-target fish that belong to another fish segment’s commercial fishery. Halibut is and always has been only “allocated” to halibut longliners.
Longliners don’t take 7.5 to 9.7 million pounds of your allocated directed bottomfish species annually so you can’t have it. Think of it in relative terms. You’d be mad as a live hammerhead shark on deck if longliners waged wanton waste wars against 80 million pounds of YFSole, cod and other sole = your allocated target species. You would not see putting an end to it as a reallocation, but rather as a reduction in a bycatch harm to the ecosystem and your future stocks, too.
Twice teaches: This is NOT a reallocation issue, it is about PROHIBITED species that you have no right to have allocated to you. Individual Bycatch Quotas would be like carbon credit nonsense. By the way, even the USA does not OWN this fish, our nation’s primary role inside 200-miles is STEWARDSHIP, not Privatization for a few greedy embezzlers. Someday, in adulthood, you will grow to know that it is crazy to kill millions of tiny ping pong halibut just so you trawlers can line your own pockets and ship most of it overseas at illicit “abusive transfer prices” and deny the USA the profits and taxes.
Be not just a good fisherman, but a good citizen.
You owe that to your country and its resources.
Have a good tow – on your own fish, avoid the halibut (lesson: Canada had a 90% drop in just a few years, you can learn from that and still take your Total Allowable Catch).
At least you name is not Korean or Japanese. They are primary players and harm not only the USA but captains and crew too. We need Transparency and Accountability.
Groundswell Fisheries Movement
Your post is nothing more then a smear campaign full of mud slinging, name calling and you even threw in racist comments at the end while still avoiding the point of my comment so I’ll make it simpler for you.
This has nothing to due with enhancing the Halibut stock and all to do with taking quota from one group and giving it to another which oddly enough in this case is yourself.
Sorry Richard, that we can’t enjoin your meaningless form of dialogue and cute little phrases: “mud slinging” “name calling” “rascist” (set you up for that one!). It is not rascist to point out that for Alaska, the primary criminals shifting profits and hiding taxes offshore were Korean and Japanese firms. Fact. And that it is “white faced (and named) agents of influence” who do the bidding, just as their USA subsidiary names in English do, and serve their foreign masters. Ergo, one you expect they would have an Anglicized or typical Caucasian name. It is not race (there is, BTW only one human race!) to point out what experts have described as Tribal Warfare, or simpler: factions. And to do so by their proper identifiers re the geography.
I have worked multiple times for foreign controlled firms of both K & J, as well as Indonesian, Latin American, and Russian. Have you? Please identify the racist comment and why it is so, if you possibly can (it doesn’t exist except in your defeated mind).
For the record, I hold no fishing rights save for those of all USA citizen-taxpayers. All of the fish in the 200-mile zone belongs to not only us, but to all people of the world: certainly not the players of privatization, the rich getting richer game. Esteemed economists call it Briberization. We prefer the shoplifting term (like W.Ryder, they come into our economic store and steal, and we have an obligation to all others to stop them), a KLEPTOCRACY.
There is a severe logic problem that you callously ignore. There was NO halibut allocation among directed and incidental players. Trawlers have never had a quota for halibut. It is therefore illogical to conclude the phrase you use is wrong: “all to do with taking quota from one group and giving it to another.” More correctly, by allowing high bycatch limits which never were adjusted downward commensurate with directed halibut quota units, the longliners have been the ones taken from, as they actually hold quota.
But we love getting your dander up and your hackles too, so keep playing if you want to. But, you did a lousy job at “a save” (probably satisfied only your limited mind – Q: Are you on drugs, alcohol, or medically impaired such as a sufferer of severe head trauma? We can grant you grace if so.).
Sometime we join the punditry, but buddy, you were outgunned, outmatched, outwitted, and outed, period. But we forgive you and love you for being in the vortex of public opinion.
Just bring some facts next time, ok!
Groundswell
I think you just proved that my last post was very accurate.
Thank you.
Fits: Huh? If you ever make any sense, then let us know after you tell yourself first.
We’re out here fighting (20 years+) for ALL fishermen and states, trying to get back BILLION$ annually lost to Abusive Transfer Pricing. But, we never expected a thanks from dockside mentality and clueless slave laborers. Your Comfort Zone like that of most is practicable as a cocoon trap but feels good – only to you.
Have you never met a cause that you unselfishly pursued for the sake of fellow mankind? Hope you do someday. Only then will you understand how few in the seafood industry even qualify by experience, employment, and managerial as well as deck time, to go after the Thalassocracy. (we trust by now you finished looking up what that might even mean, or are you stuck on Kleptocracy and still trying to understand Briberization and embezzlement of the public commons?)
Look into Adak Seafoods and then-record NOVA fine for $3.44 million against those blatant crooks. Find out why a major transnational was not allowed to gulp up another merged havoc to real fishermen and our communities. The list would stagger you. We DO, not merely try.
If you don’t like ethics, sharing with others, selflessness, then why don’t you just leave the fisheries and flip farmed salmon burgers.
Let us know when you accomplish something for others.
With all our love and forgiveness.
Groundswell
PS: you do understand you were sucked in, played with, and roasted don’t you? This month’s fool de jure. And that the messages are meant for the readers who can think logically and factually and independent of their globalist fish boss, and don’t like being whipped at low fish prices.
I find your stand up routine entertaining but a little narcissistic. If you can focus not on yourself and how ignorant everyone else is but rather on the one simple question of who gets the 50% taken from one group of fishermen it might bring some credibility to your rant.
Gee and to think that narcissism is a perfect description for your self focus cheap shots because you are acting like someone is taking 50% from you? That you already stole from them, or more.
You’re not only stupid but an insulting (as Ted Stevens called himself… ) “SOB.” Quit acting like you are special, ENTITLED. You’re telling the world you are a no good rotten to the core non-patriot, so obviously there will be no changing that Fits of narcissism.
Pay back the halibut fisheries for the over $350 million in the last decade your trawl friends already stole from them, then you’ll understand that the theft shoes are on your feet.
Even if the Council cut back bycatch limits by 85%, the Canadians could show you how to meet that requirement, as they did 90%. Are you telling us they are better fishermen than you USA traitors?
Set a lower horsepower limit, a trawl speed limit, a steel wire footrope length limit, and restrict you from halibut and crab breeding grounds, and then we can talk.
At least you’re not so stupid you didn’t get the part about stand up entertainment.
Baby halibut killers not tolerated!
Nor drunken or drugged up idiots.
But we think you are being paid to play here, and likely with a law firm or PR artists. I am sure your boss is proud of you, but you ain’t cutting it. Fired!
Your opinion is none of our damned business. Start using facts and perspectives, not greedy narcissistic prattle.
Kiss kiss, punk.
Jake D. – Groundswell
All those adolescent insults just shows your insecurities and the truth is you are avoiding a simple but important question.
Are you really that dense? Your fake question has been answered several times. No one can take halibut from the flatfish trawlers (they don’t have any quota nor right to retain), “reallocate it” (PR Lies) as you have no legal right to it, save for incidental catch to be minimized (trawl bottom-rapers haven’t) etc. It belongs to the world, stewardship control under Canada-USA agreements etc. Not including rights for trawl thieves.
We think what is hanging you up is likely the changes in the brain that occur when you first employ and rationalize lying, and the brain becomes all the more prone to agree to larger lies: like this is a “reallocation issue”. Sense of personal entitlement also changes the blood brain chemistry and electro-elements. In a sense, you are sick, and may need to consider professional medical help to scan your brain, assess the damages, and see if it is possible to extract yourself from the mental illness of your misthinking, illogic, and psychological rationalization for your behavior and beliefs.
You get last word, as we are sure it will be equally illogical and ignorant. We are off to enjoy the day and a sunny Alaska weekend. And, once again, your opinion of us is none of our damned business. If you feel your question is unanswered then may the gods help you. Say hi to the others in your faction. You clearly demonstrate they are all scared to death that they will have to fish cleaner and still catch their allocated flatfish TACs, without the directed halibut fisheries’ resource. And hey, what about trawl path mortality on crabs and other people’s fish.
Go to Sitka next week and watch your illogic fall, unless political corruption bails you out. Go lie on the federal record, PLEASE!
Kiss kiss.
Jake Davis, co-founder of Groundswell
No mater how hard you pound the keyboard, no mater how many tantrums you have the facts remain the same. You want to take from one group and give it to another. New factory longliners are being built right now and those companies are lobbying for the dollars with you pimping the way. When you get paid do they just leave the money on the night stand ?
No one believes your lies and greedy treasonist mantra,… LOL
Plus almost all of the by catch is of juvenile halibut whose biomass has almost doubled so what is being taken has absolutely no effect on the halibut. This is just outlaw greed plain and simple.
Scientists have allegedly long known that in many highly stressed ocean species the fish respond by smaller size, massive numbers, younger fecundity, in an attempt to fight back into existence as mature species. It is like a disease response, and ocean immunity system, a natural protection in many species against predators, and the inner mass in a school will survive while that school is being attacked from all sides.
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Trawlers are predators against halibut. This does not fit with laws on multispecies management responsibilities, sustainability, precautionary approach etc. I.E. all the things you would ask be obeyed were it your flatfish species being victim to some other commercial gear group(s). You can’t be so hypocritical and blind to not see this is applicable.
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It makes no sense at all to say “there’s more halibut than ever” when they are under 5# each, mere handsized, “ping pong paddles”. And how would trawlers know that anyway unless they were hauling up more halibut fish than ever. But admittedly the total weight is down if tiny fish are multiplied, when compared to pre trawl genocide and bycatch that used to weigh 4 to 5 or more times that, in commercial catches we need maturing fish not tiny non survivors.
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We’re not worried at all, but you folks are freaking out because your cavalier havoc is facing the ultimate question,
“This imbalance, massive bycatch, and wanton waste has been out of line for over 20 years. Do you not understand that this had to come to an end? ”
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Your Goebbels style lies and twistings are as transparent as Nazism, but the Nuremberg trials of fisheries is afoot. You went too far, killed too many. No one believes you anymore, nor anywhere except fellow genociders sans greed mongering liars out after a socialistic government giveaway to you of bycatch quotas and rights to not have to change predatory behavior. You feel entitled, period!
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We’d add the economic question: “how many hundreds of millions worth of halibut and crab destruction and other ocean bottom trawl path waste do you want to reimburse all halibut fisheries and the ecosystem for?” And “Why does NMFS cover for you in non-science based policy and put the Agency between the harmed and you in a federal legal sense?” Who are you buying off? (We do know some of those answers.)
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And Why do your crewmembers go along with this for a fraction of what their communities should have as multispecies ‘positive shocks’ in economic modeling terms? Why do you let foreign owners steal the profits and avoid USA taxes, while you pay yours?
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Greed and easy street are going to end. You can’t continue to get away with such a massive injustice forever. It is coming to an adjusted end, now. Have fun in Sitka and dunk when the pendulum swings right over your senseless heads.
Groundswell
Eric,
Lou, we outlawed groundfish trawling in both Federal ands state waters off SE Alaska in the 90’s. What is with you longliners, crabbers, and salmon fishermen in Kodiak? Propose and mount a campaign to prohibit groundfish trawling. Anything less is just foolishness.