-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Beers [mailto:jimbeers7@verizon.
Sent:
Sunday, October 08, 2006 3:03 PM
To: Jim Beers
Subject: Letter to
Washington Post
FISH BALONEY
Your valiant attempt to describe the
problems and solutions facing our
commercial maritime fishermen, US
Attempting to Reshape Fishing Rules -
NATIONAL NEWS page A3 in the Sunday
October 8 Post, suffers from two major
flaws; one of commission and one of
omission.
First, to use the Natural Resource Defense Council to comment
on the
"economic value" of fish stocks and how things will "hurt fishermen"
is
bizarre to say the least. The NRDC is an anti- natural resource
management
coalition that has shut down management programs and resource use
programs
all over this nation. Using them as a reference here is like asking
PETA
for their favorite fish and game recipes.
Second, you omitted
the 800 lb. gorilla in the sea, that is the 90 species
of whales, porpoises,
and dolphins et al that enjoy sacred status under US
and the rigged
International Whaling Commission (IWC) laws and regulations.
This does not
include the 31 species of seals, sea lions, and walruses et al
that are
similarly
protected under US and UN restrictions. You cannot recover the
commercial
fish stocks when 6 to 8 million (a conservative estimate) of
these animals,
many weighing tons, are unmanaged and reproducing like mice
as they eat more
and more plankton and bait fish and young and old and
breeding commercial
fish needed to recover ocean fisheries.
One need
look no further than the decimation of elk and moose and sheep
(bighorn and
domestic) in the Yellowstone ecosystem as similarly protected
wolves wreak
havoc on what were once huntable populations, imagine their
increased havoc
on populations in trouble and then superimpose that impact
on the fishery
problem you describe.
This latter point is politically important at this
moment. The Chairman of
the House Resources Committee, Richard Pombo (R) of
California is the target
of millions of dollars and volunteers from the
NRDC and it's allies who want
to defeat him for trying to set an
acceptable limit on incidental take of
porpoises in tuna nets (an incidental
take of no biological significance)
For that and supporting drilling
in ANWR he is characterized unfairly as a
villain.
We should amend
the Marine Mammal Protection Act into the Marine Mammal
Management Act
(remember optimum sustainable populations?
to be and
change our position on the IWC from one of slavish "protection" of
all
these species to a position of proactively managing their numbers and
distribution consistent with the commercial fish stocks everyone is so
pious
about.
Jim Beers
8 October 2006
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-
Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist,
Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional
Fellow.
He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York
City, and
Washington DC. He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the
western
Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands. He has worked
for the
Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a
Security
Supervisor in Washington, DC. He testified three times before
Congress;
twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of
$45 to 60
Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition
to
expanding Federal Invasive Species authority. He resides in Centreville,
Virginia with his wife of many decades.
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