|
I used "touché" in the sense of "you got me". JohnR is apparently pretty good at reading between the lines.
The CLF is a lobbying group, it's not a policy-making body. FishingFreak is taking the most extreme part of what they're talking about (full closures) and applying it to the largest possible territory (all of Stellwagen and what surrounds it) as evidence that we immediately need F2F in order to keep PETA from closing the ocean and making us all fish for hatchery raised tofu in outdoor bathtubs.
I am troubled by the extra level of protection from regulation in F2F. Who gets to decide what's "scientifc" under F2F? My guess is it's whoever wins in court, or whoever can force delays in court (commercial lobbying groups) while new multi-year "science" experiments are ordered by judges.
Do you guys remember a couple of years ago how the scientists were pulling a trawl with the cable on one side 6' shorter than on the other side, so the commercials were able to say "you did it wrong, there's no evidence that the fish stocks are declining"?
I thought we hit bottom when dogfish became more economically important than cod in Massachusetts. Imagine my surprise when even the dogfish stocks started collapsing.
I do think we need to close some areas to some gear types. I don't know all of the science or exactly which areas. I do know that trawlers have been scraping the ocean floor with squeegees for long enough that there aren't any nooks and crannies for small fish to grow large in. You can't protect cod by just making laws about how many/how large cod you can take. You need to protect kelp and seaweed and little tiny crabs and phytoplankton and all the other stuff in the biological soup that creates fish that we fish for.
Same with stripers, same with everything else.
|