March on washington Feb. 24th, 2010

[numbskull]

Originally Posted by scottw

Interview: Pew talks to Sport Fishing - Saltwater Fishing Forums

you should also read through the comments...

Such as this one by the president of Florida charter captains?

".....
The takeaway is that Pew is flexible and the driver of the catch shares system, is EDF.

We cannot beat Pew in a street fight. We need to encourage Pew to continue advocating for a slow and deliberate approach to regulating and turn our focus to EDF, which is advancing the doomsday agenda."
__________________
Captain Gary S. Colecchio
Silver Dawn Charters
Bonita Beach


Pew prioritizes the environment. If recreational fishermen do the same everybody both can win. If recreational fishermen fight to do otherwise, well then we're in for a "street fight".

[sokinwet]

"We fully support real science based management and the conservation of our marine resources while also being able to sustain recreational and commercial fishing activities, providing locally caught seafood, sustaining small family businesses, and supporting our coastal communities"

This quote from the 1st post by MM says it all. Minimal impact within this framework should be everyones goal.

" because the HUGE majority of people in this country don't believe your "right to fish" trumps their concerns about the environment.......and like it or not fish are part of the environment"

Yikes...change a couple of words and this could be from a PETA flyer!! Only kidding......I think.

[numbskull]

Originally Posted by sokinwet

"We fully support real science based management and the conservation of our marine resources while also being able to sustain recreational and commercial fishing activities, providing locally caught seafood, sustaining small family businesses, and supporting our coastal communities"

This quote from the 1st post by MM says it all. Minimal impact within this framework should be everyones goal.

And there is the rub. Sustaining recreational and commercial fishing activities is OUR priority.

Conservation of marine resources is PEW's priority.

The "impact" required to maintain current levels of recreational and commercial fishing activities is more than the goal of conserving marine resources can tolerate.......which is why most of the world's saltwater fisheries (both commercial and recreational are suffering).

Which goal do you think the non-fishing public will see as the more important?

If you and I want to continue to fish, we have to reduce our impact on the fish. Fighting not to do so (such as this ill-conceived march on Washington) may feel good in the short term but is likely to cost us BIG TIME in the long term. Freshwater guys figured this out decades ago and are fine with the result. Why are us saltwater guys so stupid?

[scottw]

he is correct, as constituted, a loosely affiliated and relatively small rec. fishing community splintered through various areas would have a difficult time organizing against a very practiced and organized 5 billion dollar worldwide propoganda machine...most rec. fishermen fish part time and infrequently...these guys are full time, highly funded activists


George, you act as though there is no fishery management at all, if that is true then what have all of the various agencies and organizations been doing for the past 30 years, you sound as though every fish stock is on the verge of collapse and if we don't get in line and follow along with the demonstrably radical enviro's...they'll take it all away from us...hell of a choice, dance with the devil or burn at the stake....I would argue that through the various fishing groups and clubs and organizations most fishermen are far more conceincious than they have ever been, most stick to the catch limits and I doubt that most would disagree with reduced catch limits.....have you checked the striper stock estimates 1980-late 2000's?...if what you indicate is true, you need to turn the graph upside down like the Global Warming guys do with theirs...there is already "control" of limits, sizes, seasons...just read the stories where Pew is exerting it's considerable muscle...they will find a way to get you off of the water entirely.....if you let them roll right over you

[scottw]

[QUOTE=numbskull;737607]Such as this one by the president of Florida charter captains?

".....
The takeaway is that Pew is flexible and the driver of the catch shares system, is EDF.

We cannot beat Pew in a street fight. We need to encourage Pew to continue advocating for a slow and deliberate approach to regulating and turn our focus to EDF, which is advancing the doomsday agenda."
__________________
Captain Gary S. Colecchio
Silver Dawn Charters
Bonita Beach


George, I though this was an interesting take on the PEW interview...it's not always what you see, or even what they show you..

You ask, why does Pew have so much influence in our society? Here's why.
Because
1. They are well organized and firmly focused.
2. They have lots of money (almost $6billion) and spend some $500million each year to get what they want (no fishing 24/7).
3. They know how to dupe or buy media . They make them Pew Fellows, call them "marine experts", grant them $150,000 to $400,000 and tell them exactly what to say - or else.
4. They are well connected all the way to the top. The former head of Pew was Bill Clinton's chief of staff and was appointed head of the CIA by Obama. The head of NOAA was a Pew Fellow and remains thisclosetoPew.
5. They are well skilled in half truths and how to sell them. Sport Fishing magazine interviewed the head of Pew's Environmental Group (June '09) who said they were "not involved in major efforts in the lower 48, except in Oregon, or Alaska [huh?]to creat reserves in U.S.coastal waters". However, the other half is that they fund others to do it for them as in California, South Carolina, Massachusetts and New York and who knows where next. Meanwhile, Pew is "absolutely transparent about our work" while fishermen are "silly", "ridiculous", under "false perceptions" and "distort what we do". Sport Fishing played right into his hand. They were out of their league, way out.
6. Pew allocated $70million to set up "umbrella" groups such as the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership to carry the ball for them. Joining that group was the peripatetic Coastal Conservation Association and the American Sportfishing Association who Pew would put out of business. What were they thinking?
Cutting to the chase -
7. The millions of fishermen and thousands of fishing associations are rarely organized and seldom focused.

[JohnR]

Flippity, Floppity, I still don't know what side of this fence I'm going to fall from.

We need better managed fisheries and science
We need better environmental controls
We need less hooks in the water from every group (yes, sucks but true).
We need less destructive commercial fishing.
We need better top to bottom management of the whole entire enchilada

We are very disorganized and spend more time battling each other than those trying take away our fisheries.
We are sitting ducks unless we do something about it but there has never been a unifying voice for saltwater recs up and down both coasts.
We don't have enough "We" where it counts.

[scottw]

you are right John, it should not be contentious among the guys here, I fully appreciate George's point of view and admire his passion...seems to me that we now have an agenda driven by Pew to dictate fishery policy, scientific studies either directly or indirectly being funded by Pew not to mention the surrogate groups that they create....and a NOAA director who I believe is a former Pew fellow who can now claim to speak for the recreational fishing community as a result of this National Angler Phone Book...information is good....we are in a tough spot...I don't think you climb in bed with the devil till you are sure what the devil intends for you

The Pew Trusts

They aren’t the average charitable foundation, having been taken far beyond the traditional role of grant giving. In “Charity Is New Force in Environmental Fight” in the NY Times (06/28/01), Douglas Jehl wrote “a $4.8 billion foundation called the Pew Charitable Trusts has quietly become not only the largest grant maker to environmental causes, but also one that controls much more than the purse strings. Unlike many philanthropies that give to conservationist groups, Pew has been anything but hands-off, serving as the behind-the-scenes architect of highly visible recent campaigns….” Pew has moved beyond the role of facilitation to developing and advocating specific positions, a vast departure from business as usual in the foundation world. In the wrap up of his article, Mr. Jehl quotes Rebecca Rimel, president of the Pew Trusts, on Pew’s effect on the national debate on global warming, "let's wait and see what the outcome is, let's see who has been able to win the hearts and minds of the public." She could have just as easily been speaking about fishing.

SeaWeb was only the start. Since its creation, Pew has been a major funder of “marine conservation” programs of anti-fishing ENGOs – almost $5 million to Environmental Defense, $3 million to Natural Resources Defense Council, $3 million for the Marine Fish Conservation Network, $4 million for Audubon, etc. Pew has also invested heavily in two organizations that it created; $34 million for Oceana and $40 million for the National Environmental Trust, both of which have been in the forefront of the anti-fishing crusade.

What’s wrong with funding fisheries research? That depends – primarily on the kind of research being funded. If it’s to learn more about fish or the environment they live in, it’s fine. We don’t know enough about any species for really effective management, and with generally meager government research budgets it will be a long time before we do. How about gear research? Anything that allows fishermen to fish more cleanly or, in these days of skyrocketing energy costs, more efficiently is going to be good for the fishing industry and good for the fish.

That’s not what Pew buys. I’ve never seen reports of Pew-funded population, gear or habitat research that involves scientists out there on the water. Pew “research” involves sifting existing – and undoubtedly inadequate – data to “prove” that fishing practices, management regimes, just about anything to do with commercial fishing, is leading to the destruction of the oceans. Calling it agenda driven research seems a pretty good fit, and, as Ms. Rimel’s comments demonstrate, it’s not just the research that’s agenda driven.

This was conveniently illustrated in a letter to the Telegraph on September 16 referencing an article about comedian Ted Danson’s concern with spiny dogfish. Juliana Stein, Pew/Oceana’s communications manager, wrote “overfishing is the most severe threat facing our oceans, and if governments don't properly manage fisheries -- including shark fisheries -- using science-based measures, many fish populations could end up beyond the point of return.” Not climate change, not massive oil spills, not unbridled offshore energy development and not the continuing and growing outwash of a world population approaching 7 billion that is increasingly dependent on noxious household chemicals and pharmaceuticals that end up in our estuaries and oceans; according to Pew/Oceana, it’s all about those rapacious fishermen, and the Pew/Oceana/SeaWeb PR machine reinforces this whenever possible. I’ll bet dollars to donuts that Pew won’t kick any of its billions of Big Oil bucks into actually going out and counting, weighing or measuring sharks.

But Pew’s severely distorted view of what’s going on in the oceans isn’t restricted to letters to editors, press releases and other trivial-seeming yet cumulatively damaging communications by salaried flacks. It goes far beyond that.

A few years back Pew spent $5.5 million on The Pew Oceans Commission. Led by a former Congressman who had served as Bill Clinton’s Chief of Staff, it was supposed to present an objective evaluation of who’s doing what to the oceans and how to fix it. From its website, it is “conducting the first review of polices and laws needed to sustain and restore living marine resources in over 30 years. The Commission includes leaders from the worlds of science, fishing, conservation, business, and politics.”

In the “follow the money” tradition established by Woodward and Bernstein in Watergate days, I did some digging into the relationships between Pew and the various commission members (discussed in greater detail in “The Pew Commission – a basis for national ocean policy?” at FishNet USA #23 - The Pew Oceans Commission).

“The Pew Ocean Commission includes the president of the Natural Resources Defense Council; the president of the Center for Marine Conservation (now the Ocean Conservancy); a trustee of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (which has provided grants to the Conservation Law Foundation, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Center for Marine Conservation, the American Oceans Campaign, and Audubon – each of which has contributed significantly to making life miserable and earning a living increasingly difficult and often impossible for large numbers of working fishermen); a trustee of the Packard Foundation (which has also provided grants to the Conservation Law Foundation, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Center for Marine Conservation, the American Oceans Campaign and Audubon as well as Environmental Defense - ditto - and SeaWeb – ditto again); the past president of the American Sportfishing Association (which is a member, along with most of the NGOs listed above, of the Pew-funded Fish Conservation Network); the president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change; a Pew Fellow; and two commercial fishermen, one of whom is the president of a trade association that has been funded by Packard and the other was a trustee of a trade association whose formation was supported by and with other ties to Pew.”

(Were we talking matrimonial rather than funding relationships, that much incest would likely have brought about the hemophilia-driven expiration of the Commission long before that $5.5 million was spent.)

I then did a simple analysis of the references that were used to support the conclusions of the Commission’s report “Ecological Effects of Fishing in Marine Ecosystems of the United States.” Two of the three authors of the report were Pew Marne Conservation scholars, well more than a third of the 179 references the report cited had at least one author who was financially connected to Pew, as did almost half of the cited references published since 1995 (it was then that Pew became actively involved in convincing the public that commercial fishing, not Big Oil, was ruining the world’s oceans). This isn’t scholarly research, it’s a deck of cards stacked to support a particular player. Yet it’s designed to inform national policy makers on what ocean governance should be. And there’s no reason to think that this campaign isn’t going international, particularly considering Oceana is also in business in South America and Europe. Who’s next?

[MakoMike]

You guys should go read this letter and sign on if you agree http://fs16.formsite.com/FixMagnusonNow/form793561462/

[numbskull]

Originally Posted by scottw

you are right John, it should not be contentious among the guys here, .........I don't think you climb in bed with the devil till you are sure what the devil intends for you

I have no passion for PEW (or for the environment for that matter......I run a boat that burns 15 gallons an hour). I have a passion for fishing.

I want fish to fish for and opportunity to do it. Under current management practices the fish are disappearing (based on 40+ years of experience). I don't need PEW to tell me this, I live it.
Closed areas threaten me, but not as much as no fish to fish for threatens me.

I have seen what current fishery science and more of the same can do......and it is not pretty.

I have also seen what PEW and CLF can do (Boston Harbor clean up and some rudimentary improvement in codfishing) and I see that as far more constructive.

Science is science........nowhere near as objective or certain as people pretend it is. Both sides can use "science" to sanctify their cause.

Fact is Fact. The fact I see is that there are one hell of a lot less fish now than earlier in my life. Current fishery management coupled with lack of recreational and commercial restraint got us here. I have NO faith at all that they will get us out.

[MakoMike]

Originally Posted by numbskull

I have also seen what PEW and CLF can do (Boston Harbor clean up and some rudimentary improvement in codfishing) and I see that as far more constructive.

Science is science........nowhere near as objective or certain as people pretend it is. Both sides can use "science" to sanctify their cause.

Fact is Fact. The fact I see is that there are one hell of a lot less fish now than earlier in my life. Current fishery management coupled with lack of recreational and commercial restraint got us here. I have NO faith at all that they will get us out.

You keep referencing the Harbor cleanup and giving PEW and CLF credit for it, but the truth of it is that they had almost nothing to do with it. It was the EPA that was primarily responsible for it. But regardless, the harbor clean up, like it or not, had nothing to do with fishery management. The clean up was under the auspices of the clean water act, which has nothing to do with fishery management and is not handled by the same agencies as fishery management .

Did it ever occur to you that the reason you are seeing "one hell of a lot less fish" doesn't have mean that are less fish in the ocean? Maybe they moved to different area? Many studies have shown that over the last 50 years almost all of the fish off the mid-Atlantic coast have shifted their range to the north. The "science" tells us that most of the species off our coast are either fully recovered or at an all-time high.

But you are correct in one respect, the "science" of fishery management is not hard science, in fact many of the scientific findings are extremely suspect. which is the main reason fishermen are protesting, because this "science" ignores the realties of what's going on on the water, yet the same "science" under the Magnesson-Stevens act is what rules fishery management.

Two Quick Examples: Dogfish - the "science" tells us that there are not enough female dogfish to rebuild the population under the timeline required by the MSA. Yet people who fish, both commercial and recreational see a plague of dogfish in the water and even the scientists admit that their population is growing by leaps and bounds. But they use the "precautionary Principle" to restrict the landing od dogfish.

Black Sea Bass - The MAFMC asked its scientific and statistical committee (That is the committee that has the absolute power to set the acceptable biological catch) to reconsider the ABC of about 2 million pounds that it has set last fall. Using the same data that they had last fall they have now recommended an ABC of almost twice that amount. Now keep in mind that under the original ABC the recreational fishery would have been two months while under the revised ABC it will probably be 12 months and you can see what a huge difference a small "scientific" error can make.

The problem that we face is that under the current MSA the science and scientists rule (don't forget that many of these "scientists" are on the PEW payroll) and the observations of people who are actually on the water are totally ignored. Read the letter I linked to above and you'll see that no one is asking for a worsening of the fisheries, all we are asking for is a little more common sense to be used in fishery management.

[scottw]

Originally Posted by numbskull

I have no passion for PEW (or for the environment for that matter......

George, I was referring to your passion for fishing and have a healthy respect for your point of view and opinions on how best to protect, impove and preserve it...

[MakoMike]

Originally Posted by JohnR

Flippity, Floppity, I still don't know what side of this fence I'm going to fall from.

We need better managed fisheries and science
We need better environmental controls
We need less hooks in the water from every group (yes, sucks but true).
We need less destructive commercial fishing.
We need better top to bottom management of the whole entire enchilada

We are very disorganized and spend more time battling each other than those trying take away our fisheries.
We are sitting ducks unless we do something about it but there has never been a unifying voice for saltwater recs up and down both coasts.
We don't have enough "We" where it counts.

John, Read the letter I linked to above. I doubt anyone here would disagree with that letter, and that's what the march is all about.