"Some of the hottest journalistic action is still in following the money. But don't look to your local newspaper, newsmagazine or public radio station for enlightenment, because the money trails today often radiate from a handful of the nation's wealthiest "charitable" foundations, and end with those media outlets themselves." (Robert Fritchey - author of Wetland Riders)

 

 
 

 

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- But what about the thirty-six percent of the fish stocks that hasn’t rebounded? The landings for cod, yellowtail flounder, haddock, white hake and winter flounder charted above plainly show that fishing on these stocks can’t be reduced much farther than it has been, but they are still declining. Can any conclusion be drawn from this other than that there are other sources of mortality for thirty-six percent of the fisheries that NRDC examined that far outweigh fishing mortality? -

The fourth FishNet on the condition of the New England groundfish fishery, the ongoing crisis, and the (non-fishing) factors that have contributed to its creation and perpetuation - The New England groundfish debacle (Part IV): Is cutting back harvest really the answer? at http://fishnet-usa.com/Groundfish_Debacle_IV.pdf.

- The people in Washington knew what they were doing back in 1976 when the Magnuson Act became law. It’s unfortunate but understandable that back then they had no idea that so-called environmentalists with the backing of multi-billion dollar foundations would be more of a threat to domestic fishermen than the foreign fishing fleets ever were. -

The latest in the ongoing saga of the New England groundfish fishery and the seemingly endless attempts by NOAA/NMFS and the anti-fishing ENGOs (an misinformed though well-intentioned complicity of the U.S. Congress) to turn it into what their conception of an acceptable fishery is. Of course this is all being done with virtually no regard for the well-being of the fishermen or the fishing communities which have played such an imortant role in forming the New England character. Read The New England groundfish debacle (Part III): who or what is at fault? at http://www.fishnet-usa.com/Groundfish_Debacle_III.pdf.

 - However, what he - Peter Shelley of New England's Conservation Law Foundation - doesn’t address is my question, so I’ll repeat it again; "what has the Conservation Law Foundation (or the mega-foundations that support it), with all of your eloquently phrased gratitude for those fishermen, done to help them to harvest any of those fish?" -

Neither commenting on my background, my abilities, my place of residence nor my connections to New England fisheries is anything approaching a semi-adequate answer to that question. I can't help but wonder if perhaps the answer would have been absolutely nothing and Mr. Shelley wasn't up to that level of candor - particularly after he expressed sauch a heartfelt, though in his estimation overdue, Thanksgiving thanks to New England's "remaining fishermen." Read Flotsam and Jetsam at http://www.fishnet-usa.com/Flotsam_Jetsam_2012.pdf for the rest of this saga.

- One of the best examples I’ve come across of a little knowledge going a long way. Unfortunately it’s going in a host of completely wrong directions." -

Other than as a prime example of inadequate research and even more inadequate fact checking, what’s the big deal about this article, and the dozens of others of similar slant that get “published” on the web each year? Do a Google search on “sharks scallops” and on the first page of results is a link to this article. It’on the first page for “scallops New Jersey” as well. Search on “Poor Henry’s scallops” and it’s the second listed link. How far and wide will the misinformation in this article spread, and for how many years? Read There’s being wrong, there’s being really wrong, and then there’s being a volunteer internet “journalist” at http://fishnet-usa.com/GettingItWrong.pdf.

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Oceans are large, they are constantly changing, they are affected by all sorts of human activities and natural phenomena, and most of what goes on in them is hidden to us. Unless you're someone who makes a living dealing with the oceans at some level, your primary source of information vis a vis fishing, habitat degradation, etc. is the popular media. Unfortunately, today's journalists, producers and editors are poorly equipped, either via education, background or budget, to appreciate how complex ocean and fisheries issues actually are. Hence reporting on ocean issues - and the vast majority of the public's understanding of them - suffers greatly from today's soundbite culture. Poorly documented (or completely undocumented) press releases, supposed independent researchers bought and paid for by agenda-driven foundations, recreational fishing columnists who are little more than industry shills, short-sighted politicians whose interests extend no farther than keeping narrowly focused pressure groups happy, and competition among user groups are all conspiring to obscure what's really going on in the world's oceans today. Our goal is to present the "other side" of the picture, to do the research that isn't being done, and to - in the words of Watergate's Deep Throat - "follow the money." We need rational ocean policies, and we're never going to have them if our decision makers, and the public they are serving, don't fully appreciate what's going on.  

 
"Why wouldn’t whoever runs this handful of foundations mandate that a significant part of the funding that they are ostensibly devoting to “saving fish and fishermen” (as the latest Pew promo on National Public Radio states) be used to improve the level of knowledge we have of the actual condition of our fish stocks? The surer we are of how many of a particular species are swimming around out there, the more precise our catch setting mechanisms for that species can be – and that would generally boil down to increased landings. The foundations – and the ENGOs they control - would be much surer that the managers were setting accurate catch quotas, as would the fishermen. (http://www.fishnet-usa.com/Research%20funding_A%20win-win.pdf)

Contact Nils Stolpe or get on the FishNet USA mailing list by contacting me at nilsstolpe@fishnet-usa.com

Did they really write that?

"Daniel Pauly, the director of the Fisheries Center at the University of British Columbia and a noted expert on global fishing trends, cites the example of the earliest anglers, Stone Age peoples in Africa who eradicated a six-foot-long catfish 90,000 years ago and then moved on to another animal. 'This pattern,' Pauly says, of fishermen 'exterminating the population upon which they originally relied, and then moving on to other species, has continued ever since.'" (The Catch, P. Greenberg, NY Times, 10/23/05)

 "In the developing world, entire countries depend on fishing. If fishing is doing what we say, then essentially, there is no tomorrow for them. We can expect that in a few decades there will be no fish left." (Daniel Pauly quoted in In A Few Decades, There Will Be No Fish, D. Jones, The Toronto Globe and Mail, 10/29/05)

 '"I realized one has to work through the public and the conservation community," he (Daniel Pauly) said, adding that he has received international notice partly because he is not "one of the gloomies." While other scientists deliver dire messages about the state of the world, he says, "I always laugh, because it's so absurd that it is funny. People think [others are] gloomy, and they know I am saying the same thing, but they don't put me among the gloomies.'" (In the same Globe and Mail article cited above)

Unless Dr. Pauly means something other than crepe hangers when he refers to "gloomies," not only is he one of them; as his words demonstrate so precisely, he might be considered a charter member of the club.