www.honestbycatch.comm is still up and running however within the next couple weeks we will be lauching a new and improved web site, a facebook page, a monthly e-newsletter and an action alert email network.
I also will be taking HonestByCatch.com on the road at the MSBA and RISAA shows and other events as yet undetermined. I will also bring presentations to fishing clubs etc that request them.
It's time we all got together and stood up and cleaned up some of the piss poor regulations.
Managers must be forced to make regulations that protect fish and sustain a realistic commercial and recreational harvest.
Commercial fishers can not have it both ways. You can not battle against the development of reasonable regulations and then complain that you are digusted by the waste caused by the regulations you helped water down.
Also, the term commercial fishers is too broad a stroke. There are good and bad in all fisheries, including recreational and rod and reel commercial. We are entering a time when the good need to kick the bad right out of the fisheries or face the consequences of getting in bed with rulebreakers.
On January 20th the National Marine Fisheries Service Enforcement Division sent a Lettter to the New England Fisheries Managment Council reporting that over the past 30 months they have taken action against 11 vessels and 5 dealers in the Atlantic Herring Fleet for many many violations including "non reporting" of "approximately 23,491,000 pounds" (yes that is millions) and "failing to retain Haddock by catch at sea". The fines totaled $1,100,100.00 and some cases have not yet been resolved.
When the CHOIR coalition was working with enviros to get money for more monitoring of these boats, Atlantic Herring Lobbyists were following them into the same DC offices lobbying against the money but standing at fisheries management meetings claiming they want to work with managers to improve by catch.
It is time for the bad guys in the fleet to go. To quote a movie I sas the other night...."We're Gona Get a Little Bloody On This One".
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