COMMON SENSE SOLUTIONS
This will explain some unintended consequences of what I hope are well intentioned laws. I will give you a brief summary of what is happening and offer some common sense solutions. Please keep an open heart and mind as you read this. I love the sea and have decades of on the water experience to offer. We should all have a common goal of healthy and sustainable fisheries that can be responsibly harvested indefinitely. We can reach the same end goal without all of the unintended consequences that waste our resources, hurt our families, destroy our businesses, and take our freedom. Commercial fishermen are not numbers in some bureaucratic equation. We are real people with families that depend on our income and care about our safety at sea. We are powerless to stop the pain and suffering that the mismanagement of our fisheries causes our loved ones. Commercial fishermen are a minority group without the money, power, or numbers to defend ourselves against the multi-billion dollar bureaucracies that rule us with an iron fist and the full weight of the federal government behind them. The bureaucrats get a gang mentality and will collectively do terrible things to their fellow man. Things that they would never dream of doing individually. We are their fellow Americans and deserve to be treated like they would want us to treat them if the roles were reversed. The whole world would be a better place if everyone just followed the Golden Rule.
The reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) contains hard deadlines and other well intentioned mandates that groups like Pew, EDF, and Oceana lobbied Congress to include in it. The MSA is the law that dictates how America's fisheries are managed. Hard deadlines require the use of the Best Available Data (BAD) to quickly do stock assessments. They have changed BAD to Best Available Science (BAS). Now they can make up whatever they want and that IS the BAS. I also think they did not like that people could use BAD like this. The rushed BAD assessments show that the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (SAFMC) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) have grossly mismanaged many of our fish stocks to the point of collapse for decades. We have had no choice but to follow their laws under threat of fines, seizures,and imprisonment. We pay the price for our obedience with our blood, treasure, and liberty. The bureaucratic incompetence is rewarded with more money and power. The BAD assessments have led to unreasonably low quotas that the SAFMC and NMFS refuse to wisely manage with Trip Poundage Limits (TPLs). This creates derby fisheries that require fishermen to stay at sea longer and in worse weather to make enough money to survive during the closures that will come when the quotas are met. We are forced by law to discard the illegal fish during the closures even though many of them will die slowly from stress, infection, and decompression damage. We then have to stay longer and in worse weather to catch enough legal fish to pay the bills. This is a waste of our resources and drastically cuts our income. It also takes your freedom to access those illegal fish. The void is filled with cheap imported seafood of questionable quality. The market for our safe American seafood is greatly diminished because there is not a dependable supply of it. Consumers get used to the cheap imported seafood and this drives down demand and prices for our local supply when it is available. This creates a vicious cycle that will continue to get worse until the quotas are wisely managed with TPLs.
I have pointed out some of the problems and these are my common sense solutions that would follow all of the mandates in the Magnuson-Stevens Act. The SAFMC has told me that the only mandate they had to follow was the one to end overfishing. I asked them how we were supposed to safely survive the rebuilding process if they would not follow the mandates to limit By Catch, make efficient use of the resource, and promote our safety at sea. They told me this in their usual cold, arrogant, and condescending way. "THAT IS NOT OUR CONCERN."
1. All size limits should be removed. We should not discard countless fish to die and be wasted because they have not lived long enough to reach some arbitrary size. We should make wise use of every fish landed and count everything against the quota. The removal of size limits along with TPLs would almost eleminate regulatory discards.
2. All targeted species should have annual quotas. The existing quotas could be increased by about a third if size limits were removed and we stopped discarding tons of seafood every year.
3. Trip Poundage Limits should be used to manage every fish with a quota. The TPLs should be set high for the first %75 of the quota and adjusted to a level that will fill it without any long closures for the remaining %25 of the quota. Some fish also need split seasons. This would almost eliminate by catch, give you access to a dependable supply of local seafood, and allow fishermen to survive the rebuilding process in a safer way.
4. Artificial Reefs could be a long term solution that would be the perfect union of aquaculture and commercially caught wild fish. We could greatly increase the total biomass the US South Atlantic could support.
This simple plan could allow us to responsibly harvest America's seafood and support our families by providing you with access to it. We could show other Nations by example how you can wisely manage fisheries in a way that preserves their heritage and way of life while making it easier and safer for them. You can contact me at freefish7@hotmail.com if you have any questions. Thank you for your time and support.
This is a link to a radio interview that I did about fishery issues. http://www.teapartymedia.net/20110619/index.htm
This video shows why we need a dependable supply of safe American seafood.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0F8x4i5GYE
This is a great song and video by a fellow fisherman from Australia facing similar fishery mismanagement. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1vFZm1W_g8
This is an article about the Environmental Defense Fund and catch shares. It is well written and worth reading. http://islandfreepress.org/2010Archives/11.10.2010-HereComeCatchSharesHowNOAAAndTheEnvironmentalDefenseFundPlanToDestroyNorthCarolinasWorkingWatermen.html
This is a wonderful article about catch shares in the American Thinker. http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/12/noaas_catch_shares_fisheries_d.html
Rep. Barney Frank supports commercial fishermen and seafood consumers. Please read this op-ed and related article. http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110112/NEWS/110119956
This best version of the Star Spangled Banner I have ever heard. Whitney peaked with the bombs bursting in air. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wupsPg5H6aE
Here are a couple of links to information about Agenda 21. That is a plan that politicians and environmentalist from around the globe came up with at the Earth Summit back in the early 1990's. It contains guidelines for governments to control land use, energy production, fisheries, and almost every aspect of of our lives. It sounds like a conspiracy because it is! http://www.freedomadvocates.org/articles/oceans_-_coasts/the_wizardry_behind_fishery_management_2004061598/
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/un_agenda_21_coming_to_a_neigh.html
The reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) contains hard deadlines and other well intentioned mandates that groups like Pew, EDF, and Oceana lobbied Congress to include in it. The MSA is the law that dictates how America's fisheries are managed. Hard deadlines require the use of the Best Available Data (BAD) to quickly do stock assessments. They have changed BAD to Best Available Science (BAS). Now they can make up whatever they want and that IS the BAS. I also think they did not like that people could use BAD like this. The rushed BAD assessments show that the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (SAFMC) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) have grossly mismanaged many of our fish stocks to the point of collapse for decades. We have had no choice but to follow their laws under threat of fines, seizures,and imprisonment. We pay the price for our obedience with our blood, treasure, and liberty. The bureaucratic incompetence is rewarded with more money and power. The BAD assessments have led to unreasonably low quotas that the SAFMC and NMFS refuse to wisely manage with Trip Poundage Limits (TPLs). This creates derby fisheries that require fishermen to stay at sea longer and in worse weather to make enough money to survive during the closures that will come when the quotas are met. We are forced by law to discard the illegal fish during the closures even though many of them will die slowly from stress, infection, and decompression damage. We then have to stay longer and in worse weather to catch enough legal fish to pay the bills. This is a waste of our resources and drastically cuts our income. It also takes your freedom to access those illegal fish. The void is filled with cheap imported seafood of questionable quality. The market for our safe American seafood is greatly diminished because there is not a dependable supply of it. Consumers get used to the cheap imported seafood and this drives down demand and prices for our local supply when it is available. This creates a vicious cycle that will continue to get worse until the quotas are wisely managed with TPLs.
I have pointed out some of the problems and these are my common sense solutions that would follow all of the mandates in the Magnuson-Stevens Act. The SAFMC has told me that the only mandate they had to follow was the one to end overfishing. I asked them how we were supposed to safely survive the rebuilding process if they would not follow the mandates to limit By Catch, make efficient use of the resource, and promote our safety at sea. They told me this in their usual cold, arrogant, and condescending way. "THAT IS NOT OUR CONCERN."
1. All size limits should be removed. We should not discard countless fish to die and be wasted because they have not lived long enough to reach some arbitrary size. We should make wise use of every fish landed and count everything against the quota. The removal of size limits along with TPLs would almost eleminate regulatory discards.
2. All targeted species should have annual quotas. The existing quotas could be increased by about a third if size limits were removed and we stopped discarding tons of seafood every year.
3. Trip Poundage Limits should be used to manage every fish with a quota. The TPLs should be set high for the first %75 of the quota and adjusted to a level that will fill it without any long closures for the remaining %25 of the quota. Some fish also need split seasons. This would almost eliminate by catch, give you access to a dependable supply of local seafood, and allow fishermen to survive the rebuilding process in a safer way.
4. Artificial Reefs could be a long term solution that would be the perfect union of aquaculture and commercially caught wild fish. We could greatly increase the total biomass the US South Atlantic could support.
This simple plan could allow us to responsibly harvest America's seafood and support our families by providing you with access to it. We could show other Nations by example how you can wisely manage fisheries in a way that preserves their heritage and way of life while making it easier and safer for them. You can contact me at freefish7@hotmail.com if you have any questions. Thank you for your time and support.
This is a link to a radio interview that I did about fishery issues. http://www.teapartymedia.net/20110619/index.htm
This video shows why we need a dependable supply of safe American seafood.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0F8x4i5GYE
This is a great song and video by a fellow fisherman from Australia facing similar fishery mismanagement. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1vFZm1W_g8
This is an article about the Environmental Defense Fund and catch shares. It is well written and worth reading. http://islandfreepress.org/2010Archives/11.10.2010-HereComeCatchSharesHowNOAAAndTheEnvironmentalDefenseFundPlanToDestroyNorthCarolinasWorkingWatermen.html
This is a wonderful article about catch shares in the American Thinker. http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/12/noaas_catch_shares_fisheries_d.html
Rep. Barney Frank supports commercial fishermen and seafood consumers. Please read this op-ed and related article. http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110112/NEWS/110119956
This best version of the Star Spangled Banner I have ever heard. Whitney peaked with the bombs bursting in air. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wupsPg5H6aE
Here are a couple of links to information about Agenda 21. That is a plan that politicians and environmentalist from around the globe came up with at the Earth Summit back in the early 1990's. It contains guidelines for governments to control land use, energy production, fisheries, and almost every aspect of of our lives. It sounds like a conspiracy because it is! http://www.freedomadvocates.org/articles/oceans_-_coasts/the_wizardry_behind_fishery_management_2004061598/
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/un_agenda_21_coming_to_a_neigh.html
