NMFS Has Left the
Building
Until the National Marine Fisheries Service checks back
into the “Reality Hotel”,
its efforts to save whales will be hampered by a serious lack of
interest on the part of the lobster fishing industry. Throughout the entire whale
campaign it has been continuously stressed that having industry’s
support and assistance is vital to the success of the program. With that fact firmly
established, NMFS has now proceeded to add more rules for fishermen
and in doing so has managed to slip beyond the point of reason and
has succeeded in alienating the fishing community. NMFS has left the reality
building.
The issues here have been the Dynamic Area Management
idea, the DAM, which won’t work, and the Seasonal Area Management
concept, the SAM, which could have worked. NMFS fell off the balcony
with the SAM when it declared that only one buoy line could be used
on a trawl and that no floating line could be used at the bottom of
the one buoy line that was left. Industry had warned the
agency that these two measures, if included in the SAM plan, would
kill the program if the other absurdity, the DAM, hadn’t already
done so.
Even the Service’s chieftains on high in
Gloucester and Silver Springs have conceded that the DAM idea is
unworkable. To tell
everyone to remove all lobster and gillnet gear in two days from a
large portion of the ocean if three whales show up is absurd and the
Service knows it. The
excuse being used here has been that the court and the environmental
“fruitcakes”, had forced them to propose these measures. It’s been obvious all
through these efforts to save whales that the court and these
donation-seeking green teams have never really checked into the Reality Hotel and in fact
haven’t even been in the lobby.
The latest example of NMFS still isn't getting the
message occurred at the Maine Fishermen's Forum when the seminar on
the whale plan featured a public relations push to have fishermen
"help" by reporting whale sightings or entanglements. This
idea was also sent out recently in notices from the agency's
whale department; hello, reality check-in time! Sure,
you too can join in and cause a Dynamic Area Management alert that
could shut down the fishery in a large part of the ocean. For
NMFS it's simple, just have the fishermen call 1-800-I'm Stupid and
we'll send you on a vacation from fishing at your own
expense.
We had hoped that it would not be necessary to suggest to
fishermen that they withdraw their support and assistance for this
campaign.
Unfortunately, we must now make that suggestion at least
until the Fisheries Service decides to remove unreasonable measures
and return to the Reality
Hotel. It is a
shame that we have all worked so hard trying to help the whales
survive only to have our efforts sabotaged by legal harpoon wielding
environmental groups who have driven the federal fishing agency to
propose and adopt absurd, unworkable and unnecessary
provisions. The
ultimate fault here however, must rest with the government agency
itself because it couldn’t or wouldn’t put its foot down and declare
that it would only implement reasonable measures that would be
supported by the fishing industry. It could have been argued
that with industry support, compliance would be easier with whatever
provisions were adopted and the effort would continue to have that
vital element needed in the “Save the Whale” campaign, that being,
the fishermen themselves.
“Front
desk, would you please ring the NMFS penthouse one more time to see
if they’ve returned?”
Bill Adler
Executive
Director
04/02
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