If this month’s blog looks familiar it is, in part, a re-hash of a previous daily update/advisory.
Some government agencies never cease to amaze me. The current stupid award goes to NOAA and the National Marine Fisheries Service. If you read my very 1st blog, January 2013, you will quite possibly reach the conclusion that NOAA's fishing shortage is not being caused by over-fishing by commercial fisherman, but by the burgeoning seal population in the Gulf of Maine they helped to create by making them a protected species. Specifically, as a result of making seals protect, the seal population in the Gulf of Maine has skyrocketed from 10,000 in the 70’s to close to between 200,000 to 300,000 today. Let’s work with the 200,000 number. The average seal is 500 pounds and eats 6%-8% of its body wait in fish every day. Let’s work with 6%. 6% of 500 is 30 pounds/day times 200,000, equals 6,000,000 pounds of fish/day that is eaten by seals and when we do a yearly calculation, that is 2,190,000,000 pounds of fish per year. That’s $2.19 billion, with a B.
To add insult to injury, in addition to the quota's placed on fishermen, they now have to pay $700/day to have their catch monitored. That's correct, they have to pay the government to make sure their catch meets government imposed quota's every 5th day. Many fishermen are saying that this will put them out of business. The government has done an excellent job so far, since, according to WMUR, there are only 9 commercial ground fisherman left in NH.
Some government agencies never cease to amaze me. The current stupid award goes to NOAA and the National Marine Fisheries Service. If you read my very 1st blog, January 2013, you will quite possibly reach the conclusion that NOAA's fishing shortage is not being caused by over-fishing by commercial fisherman, but by the burgeoning seal population in the Gulf of Maine they helped to create by making them a protected species. Specifically, as a result of making seals protect, the seal population in the Gulf of Maine has skyrocketed from 10,000 in the 70’s to close to between 200,000 to 300,000 today. Let’s work with the 200,000 number. The average seal is 500 pounds and eats 6%-8% of its body wait in fish every day. Let’s work with 6%. 6% of 500 is 30 pounds/day times 200,000, equals 6,000,000 pounds of fish/day that is eaten by seals and when we do a yearly calculation, that is 2,190,000,000 pounds of fish per year. That’s $2.19 billion, with a B.
To add insult to injury, in addition to the quota's placed on fishermen, they now have to pay $700/day to have their catch monitored. That's correct, they have to pay the government to make sure their catch meets government imposed quota's every 5th day. Many fishermen are saying that this will put them out of business. The government has done an excellent job so far, since, according to WMUR, there are only 9 commercial ground fisherman left in NH.
As a result of all the regulation on fisherman and our diminished catch, we (the US) are importing seafood to the tune of 5.6 billion pounds/year, which must be inspected for quality and toxins such as mercury. What we import represents 90% of our seafood consumption (CNN), even tho state's such as Maine and Florida have more than 2000 miles of coastline. Most of our seafood comes from China that has little or no regulation. The FDA is responsible for seafood inspections and to put it in perspective, they are only able to inspect 4% of the seafood coming into the country. This generally, doesn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling and NOAA (the parent agency of NMFS) with its rules & regulations on US fishermen is the epitome of mental myopia and unintended consequences that hurt us, the consumer, and are killing the fisherman.
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