NMFS hearing today

[twofinbluna]

When you say you wanT longliners held accountable, what does that mean? Shut them down and "choke" them are the suggestions I have been hearing. Was this suggested when angling went over quota by 300 tons for years in a row?

Being held accountable to most people means staying within your allocation. In the harpoon quota we now have less than 35 metric tons. If we get good weather and the the bait is around, we could catch that in two weeks. I would sure love to catch two or three times that amount, but we will not be allowed to. If we go even 1 ton over we will pay it back from our allocation the next season.

The longliners have an allocation- when you combine the NED number, it is almost 100mt. They should find a way to stay within it, including landing and discards. You keep mentioning the angling fishery- look at how the screws have been tightened on them since they went over. They are not even allowed to catch large mediums anymore- a crucial part of that fishery. Everyone has a quota share, find a way to stay within it. Explain to me why longliners should get preferential treatment?

Stop using this "choke" term to make it sound like people are saying they want to choke longliners. I was not at the meeting you are referring to, but I guarantee you Rich was using the term "choke species", which is a common term nowadays. It simply refers to a stock- often a bycatch stock- that can restrict a fishery. Yellowtail flounder in the scallop fishery, haddock in the herring fishery, and now bluefin in the longline fishery. It is not implying that anyone wants to choke the longliners- its just a term for what bluefin has become to that fishery.

This problem sucks, but the solution is not to have one category going way over and making others pay for it. Simple as that. And that goes for all categories.

[High Hooks]

The speaker, Brad, i think is his name said that the reason why they are using 09 data is because of the "lag" time from reporting. Something i understood to happen within a couple of weeks after the season closes. Then he included dealer processing and finally he said "NMFS processing". Someone asked what the processing entailed, he said that someone had to "SCRUB" the numbers. wtf is that?? then basically said that most of their numbers were based on data models and Projections built from scientific info. To me it sounds like they have little to no concrete numbers to work with. One guy at the meeting said that he wishes us taxpayers could fabricate our own numbers to give to the IRS. awsome! this whole thing is bogus and anyone that is able to attend the fairhaven meeting needs to show up and give some support.

[SoBoSlow]

Can you reduce incentive to by-catch, entirely do away with dead discards, add funding for LL observers, and prevent a "choke" species all by imposing a x% (call it 10% or something to match the profit of the fish) tax/tarriff/landing license fee calculated on the market price of the landings beyond the allocated quota? To do this you have to also mandate that all landed fish come to shore and be sold.

Doing so will prevent all dead discards and allow all by-catch to enter the market without rewarding the by-cather. Take the fees and direct them to funding additional observers, species research, or some other, generally desirable, activity associated with the fishery.

Eliminating the profitability of the overage, while allowing the boat to recoup the costs associated with that overage fish, and taking up space that should have gone to a profitable fish, should incentivise (in a generally market driven way) the boats to avoid by-catch and should eliminate dead discards. The current practice of dead discard of by-catch (especially when the allocation comes off the top of the entire quota) is not a disincentive to by-catch on any individual user.

This does not address where any overage quota needs to come from (I will leave that to others to solve), but it should act as a fair, but strong, market disincentive to by-catch for everyone.

I am as free market as free market gets and any sort of a tax on market activities is entriely against my nature. However, I have also read enough on the "Tragedy of the Commons" to realize with a natural resource/common area some disincentive needs to be imposed on the individual to ensure they experience the cost to the common good resutling from their individual actions. This seems to me (first time I have spent any time on it) to be the least interventionist solution (which generally suits my nature).

[Fishypantsmagoo]

We need to equal or top the Gloucester showing at the following NE meetings in Portland and Fairhaven.

Additionally, I recall Brad mentioning that we should sending hard letters either USPS or fax to Sarah McGlaughlin because those letters of opposition are more likely to be filled compared to the regulations.gov petition and emailed oppositiion letters.

Brown, Kerry, Keating, Frank, etc, we need to inundate their mailboxes with letters of opposition as well.

The dialogue that we engage here needs to be relayed to legislators and management officials.

[horsemackeral]

We need to equal or top the Gloucester showing at the following NE meetings in Portland and Fairhaven.

Additionally, I recall Brad mentioning that we should sending hard letters either USPS or fax to Sarah McGlaughlin because those letters of opposition are more likely to be filled compared to the regulations.gov petition and emailed oppositiion letters.

Brown, Kerry, Keating, Frank, etc, we need to inundate their mailboxes with letters of opposition as well.

The dialogue that we engage here needs to be relayed to legislators and management officials.

You are right. he did say that the greatest impact was done with written comment....

[Captain Curt]

We need to equal or top the Gloucester showing at the following NE meetings in Portland and Fairhaven.

Additionally, I recall Brad mentioning that we should sending hard letters either USPS or fax to Sarah McGlaughlin because those letters of opposition are more likely to be filled compared to the regulations.gov petition and emailed oppositiion letters.

Brown, Kerry, Keating, Frank, etc, we need to inundate their mailboxes with letters of opposition as well.

The dialogue that we engage here needs to be relayed to legislators and management officials.

We need both written comments and people to show up @ the meetings. I will be at the Fairhaven meeting.

[happytuna]

We need both written comments and people to show up @ the meetings. I will be at the Fairhaven meeting.

i'll be in portland