THE LAST WORD ON FISH

•Al, It’s too bad you didn’t use my entire statement from 1994, instead of pulling my words out of context (see “Too Many Fish in the Sea” at portlandphoenix.com). It’s also too bad you seem in a rush to jump to conclusions over this. Do you have any idea of the hundreds of people who no longer work in the seafood business in New England? Or how many boats no longer exist? People did go out of business.

Last year, the Portland Fish Exchange auctioned almost 26 million pounds of fish — 90 percent of the State’s landings. In 1990, Rockland, Maine alone had 50 million pounds of fish.

It is true, the fish stocks are in much, much better shape than they were in 1994. It’s also true that the industry must take most of the credit for the past decline. We also made the hard choices necessary to bring the fish back.

As one who, in a small way, is part of the management process, I am proud of the work we’ve done to bring about a situation where most of our stocks in New England are increasing and fishing mortality is decreasing. Especially compared to most of the rest of the world where the opposite is occurring. We have thousands of permanent and seasonal closures, very limited fishing days per vessel, and use the biggest groundfishing mesh in the world. We have more work to do but an honest look at how much has been done is warranted.

I am also proud to be part of an industry who’s end product is food in an increasingly hungry world. Our job is to feed people.

As one who likes to point out what’s wrong with things, maybe you should take a closer look at the Sustainable Fisheries Act. You might find a very unjust, wasteful law being misused by folks whose agendas have little to do with sustainable fisheries.

You are right about one thing Al, some things never do change.

•Were you aware of the damage the Eastern Block Countries did to our resources before the 200 mile limit was in place and how fast, when effort was reduced, the stocks came back? Were you aware that when the stocks did come back, the US Government encouraged lots of investment to the point of over capacity?

As I explained in my previous email, the industry does deserve most of the credit for the decline.

I have been one of those calling for bigger mesh sizes, and better managed closed areas for years. Most of the “whining” about regulations has more to do with regs that are wasteful, and counterproductive.

Perhaps it’s easier to refer to us as just a bunch of “dammed greedy” people. Then you can dehumanize the process. But having been in this business for 22 years, (plus a couple as a junior Biologist for the Maine Department of Marine Resources), most of the fish folks I know have a deep appreciation for the ocean, fish stocks, and the environment. Fishing is less of a get-rich-quick plan than a long-term lifestyle. To be in it for the long term requires a healthy resource and a long-term mind horizon. Fishermen have a closer connection to the earth than most who make their living with other means. They have a deeper awareness of the natural world.

Overcapitalization, advances in technology, and a lack of understanding brought George’s Bank stocks low in the early 1990s — not greed. Strict management measures on George’s without regard to what these would do in the Gulf of Maine contributed to the decline of the Gulf of Maine stocks.

Decisive action has brought all of these stocks to a rebuilding condition and some are already fully recovered. Most will be soon. Closed areas, and mesh-size increases, were supported by the industry. It wasn’t unanimous, but most saw the long-term benefits of proper management, even if it meant giving up their favorite fishing grounds forever. It’s unfair to lift a few quotes from the past and apply them to what really took place. (For the record, fishermen did not “oppose virtually all rebuilding efforts if it meant catching fewer fish.”)

The current situation is: even though stocks are rapidly improving, the Sustainable Fisheries Act says that’s not good enough and drastic action upon drastic action is required. There is no focus on recruitment, age structure, or fish behavior — the things that make a real difference. All we have to go by is projected mortality rates, and the faster the stocks grow, the more fish we catch with the same effort — and that’s somehow a bad thing. Also, it doesn’t matter to the Act that one species eats another and a recovery of one stock can slow the recovery of another. The act says all stocks must be at their highest potential level at all times or else.

Finally, there is the lack of information. Stock assessment data is routinely two years old. Fishermen use the latest technology. Fisheries science sticks to a 30+-year-old sampling technique for consistency’s sake. In itself, for what it was meant to do, the stratified random design survey is very good. But the data is assimilated slowly and gives little information on fish behavior, spawning patterns, etc. Let’s face it, whether your stocks are growing or in decline, two-year-old data does not serve you well.

Greg Griffin was wrong to compare the industry to a greedy child eating chocolate cake to it’s own detriment.

ýurns out I was wrong, too (out of context). Those of us that are left aren’t the best cheaters. Those that are left are the best businessmen/fishermen. The ones who run the best operations and can put up with the quagmire of regulations (that surround a lot more than just the fishing community).

Bill Gerencer

Baldwin

THE LAST WORD ON BRUDNOY

The racism of “The Case Against Israel” (Portland Phoenix, May 24) cured me of envy of David Brudnoy’s mellifluous radio voice. He can have it.

Yes, there are many anti-Semitic and anti-Western Arabs, some of the fundamentalist ilk who would brutally force Islam upon the world, as the ruthless Sudanese government has tried to do. For far more, there is more than sufficient cause for hatred, if none for the despicable slaughter of innocent civilians by terror bombings, even though terror is the only violent weapon at the disposal of the powerless:

1. In 1948, the West (via US twisting of United Nation’s arms) gave over half of Palestine to the Jewish third of its population (who owned only 6 percent of Palestinian land) and allowed it to take another 23 percent so that Israel had over three-fourths of Palestine, including the best land and control of the water and 700,000 Palestinians were refugees, denied return to their homes or compensation.

Israel has since launched two wars, in 1956, and, indisputably contrary to Brudnoy’s claim which would, he argues, justify the occupation of Judea and Samaria, 1967 (my source: Menachim Begin, historians). The latter aggression occasioned annexation of parts of the West Bank and Jerusalem, settlements in 14 percent of what remained of Palestine with linking motorways that occasion as much as 40-mile detours for Palestinians to go five miles to the next village, and control of about half of the West Bank and Gaza Strip land.

Since 1967, the Israelis have subjected the occupied Palestinians to brutality, torture, detentions, imprisonment without trial, school and border closures preventing access to jobs, and endless searches, checkpoints, and roadblocks. Israelis have killed many times as many Palestinians as the much-publicized Israeli victims — five times as many in the last 18 months. (A mistakenly mailed report of one killing investigation revealed habitual cover-ups of wanton killings such as that of a mother and daughter working a field last week.) In all ways except systematic extermination, Israel has emulated the dehumanizing Nazi anti-Jewish racism of the ’30s and early ’40s; it has systematically driven Palestinians out of their own country. The UN and Geneva Conventions disallow the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and refusal of refugee rights; with carte blanche US support and UN tolerance, Israel gives international law the finger.

2. The West has supported an 11-year embargo against Iraq that has prevented repair of systematically destroyed water and sewer facilities and killed a half million to a million and a half Iraqis.

3. The West has regularly armed Arab dictatorships which repress democratic aspirations and institutions of free speech.

4. We engineered the overthrow of the popular Mossadegh government in Iran.

Brudnoy ignores this reality. He honors Ariel Sharon’s provocation-to-president election, but falsely denies Yasser Arafat’s election. His sophistry dances around what he calls “Palestinian territory” when, whatever its formal status, it ain’t Israel. He embraces Sharon’s claim that Israel’s war on terrorism is like ours, when Sharon is putting down resistance to Israel’s clearly illegal occupation by aggression of “Palestinian territory”; we had not occupied any Arab territory.

Likewise, Brudnoy offers no evidence that “the predominant goal of the Arab dictatorships . . . is the total elimination of Israel,” while ignoring Egypt’s recognition of Israel 25 years ago and the Palestinian Liberation Authority’s recognition at Oslo. Brudnoy mocks the “gushers of tears over the sad fate of Palestinians,” thousands killed ruthlessly and all oppressed, suggesting that Arab leaders are alone to blame.

Brudnoy ignores the disinterested condemnations of Israel’s brutal occupation, the recent demonstration against the occupation by 100,000 in Jerusalem, the 1400 Israeli military refuseniks, equivalent to over 100,000 American soldiers declaring, “We won’t go.”

Given that we have David Brudnoy as a steadfast champion of the US spending as much on arms as the rest of the world combined, I cannot lose sleep over his fear of the Arabs taking over — not in my grandchildren’s lifetimes anyway. And I can tune him out hereafter in preference for silence.

William H. Slavick

Portland

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