From a world class scientist who is kept from speaking out at his agency. He help;s me on things now and then. Best to you.

Bob Jones, Executive Director
Southeastern Fisheries Association
http://www.seafoodsustainability.us

JOIN SFA TODAY---SAVE YOUR CULTURE

-----Original Message-----
From: peterrubec <peterrubec@cs.com>
To: bobfish <bobfish@aol.com>
Sent: Fri, Feb 24, 2012 5:06 pm
Subject: Re: A thought from Menachem Ben-Yami....A very wise person.

Bob, Ben-Yami is indeed a wise person.

Peter

-----Original Message-----
From: bobfish <bobfish@aol.com>
To: bobfish <bobfish@aol.com>
Sent: Tue, Feb 21, 2012 9:41 am
Subject: A thought from Menachem Ben-Yami....A very wise person.

"Do we really need models, however complete, to embark on ecosystem management? How about starting with reducing or, where still feasible, preventing river-borne pollution, municipal, agricultural, and industrial effluents? And providing more protection to inshore, and along-shore habitats? Can’t we do all these and more, apart from, but together with fisheries management without models?

Now about models. I’m most certainly not an expert on modelling, but I have very strong opinion on applying models where they do not belong. When a (mathematical/statistical) model is proposed it should be examined as to whether it comprises all the important elements required to generate results and whether and to what degree are the data fed to those elements sufficient and trustworthy.

I think that the key problem with economic, ecosystem, fisheries and any other management models of whatever sort is that they themselves need to be wisely managed. What I mean is that whenever any such model is about to be applied to provide practical solutions or forecasts, its should be peer reviewed (by quite independent panel) for the following: is it correctly designed; does it fit the situation to which it is supposed to be applied; if “yes” to the latter, what is going to be its reliability level with respect of providing appropriate answer/solution.

I trust that, provided that data and information collection would develop to feed computers with the right stuff, with continually improving computing power also models would be improving.

For, as the late Dr.Bill Silvert wrote: a model is never complete…"

Fisherman: when you kick me won't I scream?

THOUSANDS OF COASTAL FISHERMEN
TO RALLY IN WASHINGTON DC ON MARCH 21

In another historic show of solidarity, U.S. recreational and commercial fishermen will gather at Upper Senate Park in Washington DC on March 21, 2012 starting at noon in an organized demonstration supporting sensible reform of the Magnuson Stevens Fisheries Conservation and Management Act.

This is a follow-up to a rally in February of 2010 that brought some 5,000 recreational, commercial and party/charter vessel owners, fishermen and people in fisheries dependent businesses from all over the country to Washington. Twenty plus Members of the Senate and House of Representatives spoke regarding efforts to reform Magnuson.

Signed into law in 1976, the 36-year-old law “most notably aided in the development of the domestic fishing industry by phasing out foreign fishing,” according to the National Marine Fisheries Service. In recent years however, the act has been transformed from its original intent into a weapon employed by a handful of mega-foundations and the so-called marine conservation organizations they subsidize aimed at reducing overall participation in our nation’s rich fisheries while driving both commercial and recreational fishermen off the water.

Rally organizers are asking legislators for help by amending the law to provide a better balance of marine conservation and coastal commerce, as it was originally intended to do.

The upcoming rally is being billed as Keep Fishermen Fishing, and once again unites the commercial and recreational sectors under one common message; “Fix Magnuson Now.” There were more than 40 chartered buses filled with rally participants in 2010, and efforts are once again underway in many coastal states to transport fishermen to the rally.

“Those who didn’t attend or perhaps chose not to support the original rally are mostly unaware of the strides we’ve taken since 2010,” said Jim Donofrio, executive director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance and one of the rally organizers. “With the support of the two dozen members of Congress who addressed us at Upper Senate Park, leaders from both sides of the aisle have pushed to make Magnuson reform a Congressional priority. As a result, the House Natural Resources Committee is now reviewing eight different pieces of fisheries reform legislation.”

“Our coastal fishermen represent the true spirit of Main Street America, as over-burdensome regulations supported only by organizations and individuals supported by a handful of mega foundations is forcing third and fourth generation fishermen off the water and away from sustainable public resources,” said Nils Stolpe, producer of FishNet USA, representing the interests of U.S. commercial fishermen. “The plight of our coastal fishermen is finally getting the media and legislative attention it deserves, and we hope to keep that momentum moving forward on March 21.”

Keep Fishermen Fishing organizers thus far include Recreational Fishing Alliance, Southeastern Fisheries Association, National Association of Charterboat Operators, Morro Bay Commercial Fishermen’s Association, Garden State Seafood Association, United Boatmen, Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, Panama City Boatmen, Viking Village Dock, Fishermen’s Dock, Hull’s Seafood Markets, Lund's Fisheries, Westport Charterboat Association, Southern Off Shore Fishing Association, Garibaldi Charters, Florida Keys Commercial Fishermen's Association, New York Fishing Tackle Trades Association, Save the Summer Flounder Fishery Fund, New York Sportfishing Federation, Monkfish Defense Fund, Atlantic Capes Seafood, North Carolina Watermen United, Big Game Fishing Journal, West Coast Seafood Processors Association and Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association.

For more information including bus details, visit http://www.keepfishermenfishing.com/.

Follow Keep Fishermen Fishing on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Keep-Fishermen-Fishing/282791548442919, through our blog at http://fixmagnusonnow.blogspot.com/, via our Twitter feed at https://twitter.com/#%21/FishMarchDC2012 or search for Keep Fishermen Fishing on Google+.

Commercial sector contact: Nils Stolpe (386-409-0675)
Recreational sector contact: Jim Donofrio (888-564-6732)



How f/v TASU was ditched

M. Ben-Yami Column          WORLD FISHING, February 2012, p.7

DITCHING A FISHING BOAT: NO PROBLEM – JUST FOLLOW THE RULES

I started my marine career as a wireless operator. An upcoming "sparker", as we were fondly called by other seamen, one of the first subjects they taught me in the maritime school was how to react to safety problems and, in particular, when yours or other ship was in distress. Obviously, it was the sparker's task to radio for help, which in those times consisted of Morse-code message starting with SOS (in Morse: …---…). Asked by our instructor, a blunt WW2 British Navy veteran, what does SOS mean, remembering some of the sea-lore books I read, I answered: save our souls. "F…k your souls" – said the guy – "it's save our ship"!

This was over sixty years ago, nevertheless when I looked up SOS in Wikipedia I found the following: In popular usage, SOS became associated with such phrases as "save our ship", and "send out succour". Well, nowadays, the Morse-run radiotelegraphy belongs to history if not archeology, and instead, the expression Mayday repeated thrice is the international distress signal. According to the Wikipedia:  "A Mayday call is roughly equivalent of a Morse code SOS. When they receive a mayday call the coast guard may launch lifeboats and helicopters to assist the ship that is in trouble. Other ships that are nearby may divert course to assist the vessel broadcasting the mayday".

In the old times the unwritten rule among seafarers used to be that you don't desert a vessel in distress. First, you do your best to save it and if you do – you can claim a reward, with the boat itself serving as collateral.

It appears that nowadays this rule is not always and not everywhere followed. At least it was not followed when on 13 October, 2011, an old 48-foot classic West American wooden  troller, the F/V Tasu, was grounded at high tide on the sandy beach at Bolinas (north of San Francisco, California). While she was still partly floating undamaged on a slack tide the skipper-owner called the Coast Guard to give her a tow off the beach before the tide went out and Tasu would lay over, possibly cracking her keel. 

Well, whoever took the call at the San Francisco Coast Guard station asked whether the crew was OK, and when the skipper truthfully answered that positively, he was told to contact a private company, for it was the U.S. Coast Guard policy not to lend assistance in such cases.  This, in spite that the Coast Guard with divers and equipment was less than 45 minutes away, and if the Tasu would not be removed soon and the tide went out, the vessel could be heavily or even irreversibly damaged, with her fuel and oil leaking into the nearby National Marine Sanctuary.

Willy-nilly the skipper called the private salvage company recommended by the Coast Guard. They asked for and he gave them his credit card number, but after a while they informed him that his credit was insufficient to cover their costs. As time was running out, other fishermen radioed that they'd help with the salvage costs, but still the company refused to come. While fishing boats in the area were willing to try to tow the Tasu from the beach, they had no means to run a line to the stranded Tasu, such as should available at the nearby S.F. Coast Guard station.

     Well, some Coast Guard and also California Fish & Game staff did arrive, but by land, and only to make sure that fuel and oil were pumped off to avoid a spill in the adjacent sanctuary. They had no capacity or authority to avoid the loss of a $100,000 fishing boat and fisherman' and his family’s livelihood. Time passing, the tide went out and the boat remained grounded only to be battered by surf and tides. According to local press report, Tasu was not insured.

California press wrote also that the TASU tragedy left a wake of bad feelings among the local population and the other fishermen. Especially that all of this could have been avoided, would both the S.F. Coast Guard commanding staff and the salvage businessmen were following the old SOS "save our ship" maritime rule -  Tasu would be refloated and fisherman's livelihood sustained.     

On the top of his misfortune with Tasu's grounding, her skipper had to hire a company to remove the fuel from the boat, to prevent an environmental hazard and then to have the wreckage removed, and bear considerable costs.

Additional irony of this tragedy is that the "Vessel Assist" salvage firm's parent company is the Boat Owners Association of the United States (based in Virginia). Well. they said that they're going to investigate…

Maybe the fisherman should've exaggerated his situation and told the Coast Guard that he's in danger, too. Or maybe, the people who're paid for helping mariners in trouble should've shown little flexibility with their rules and made some effort to save the boat?

 

The good old small-scale fishery

In the 1980s the National Fisherman, an American fisheries journal had held a                  column written  by an East Coast fisherman Capt. Perc Sane. At that time the governmental fisheries management was much less wide-ranging than nowadays. Nevertheless, the       various limitations, including allowing catching only a single species, have been already         practiced on the West Coast. In 1983, Perc Sane, visited the West Coast and was stunned     by the various restrictions affecting small-scale fishery there. He described his impressions in    his column, and explained why the less management at the East Coast makes more           sense. Here're some extracts (Courtesy: National Fisherman):

Perc Sane goes West  …//…   The way it is, a Maine fisherman has to lobster a little       in the summer, dig a few clams n’worms in the fall, jig some smelts through ice in         the winter n’gillnet some alewives in the spring. When he ain’t busy with these,            he catches a few rock crabs, drags mussels, seines a bunch of herrin’, pots a few     snails, rakes irish moss, picks spruce gum n’snips the ends of balsam trees for  Christmas wreaths, which is called tipping. …//…

…//…  In Maine, when she ain’t so good, we drive our lobster boats right up in the    shore alders on a high tite n’say t’hell with it. Take off the CB maybe, n’let her sit     there ‘till things look sunnier. …//…

This is an excellent description of some of the old times small-scale/artisanal fisheries that in a few words explains why they were sustainable and why they wouldn't overfish their       resources. Such inherent flexibility allowed fishermen to move between the various stocks,        or stop fishing, whenever their yields went down below a certain level, and to fish in          accordance with the nature's shifting seasons. How wise and effective used to be               those traditional autochthonic management systems, that followed the ways and seasonality      of nature, moved among fishing sites and times and never tried to curb catches.

But today's fishery managers consider such flexibility just another bygone along with the whole traditional management, which is one reason why many coastal fisheries are being over-regulated to death.

Catch shares and management targets

In theory, participants in catch-share management schemes should have a vested interest in the health of stocks over the long term. Yet, it remains unclear

whether catch share systems improve fisheries management and stock status.

Dr. Michael Melnychuk of the University of Washington and his co-authors assessed 345 marine fish and shellfish stocks from around the world to determine whether catch share programs were better at reaching management targets than catch limits or effort controls. The authors found that catch share systems have some benefits. In particular, catch share fisheries achieve target catch levels more consistently. Another observed benefit, decreased overfishing, appears to be due more to the presence of a fleet-wide quota cap than to the   division of that quota into shares. The analysis, however, did not provide evidence that any of the management approaches resulted in increased average size or biomass of fisheries stocks.

About Iran and Israel from Britain

Here is a short video of a speech of the journalist and author Douglas Murray at a recent debate at Cambridge University relating to the Iranian nuclear threat with an Israel angle.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dBzslDdQ_g

It is not often one hears in Britain the kind of argument against the hypocritical and rather immoral position much of Europe and many Western academics hold toward Israel.
Recommended to watch. MB-Y