Screwed by the NMFS once again!

[Jagsare1]

I am so sick of the blatant commercial intent of the NMFS. It makes me sick to my stomach.

Brief history...rec fishermen discover a swordfishery in the 70's off the east coast of Florida. Commercial interests jump in and decimate the population in less than a decade. Public pressure causes the area to be made off limits to commercial swordfishing.

Late 90's - early 2000's...rec fishermen discover that the swordfish seem to be making a comeback after a very long absence. Fish are small on average which seems to indicate either a nursery or a population trying to grow. NMFS attempts to slide in commercial swordfishing in the dark of the night but they are caught and public pressure causes them to back off. But, they try again and again and again until they come up with a new slant. "Temporary" permits that allows longliners to fish in the restricted areas under the guise of science and the "testing of new gear" which surely could be tested in areas open to fishing.

Temporary permits are about to expire so what does the NMFS do? They extend the permit and expand the areas they can fish. The intent is clear as day. They want commercial fishing in the closed areas! Announced today:



Atlantic Highly Migratory Species News
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) announces a final decision to issue a one-year extension of Exempted Fishing Permit (EFP) 08-02 to continue scientific research in the East Florida Coast (EFC) and Charleston Bump closed areas. This action will also increase the area authorized for research in the EFC by 10 nautical miles (nmi) from 79° 40’ to 79° 50’ West Longitude in areas south of 30° North Latitude, and will allow vessels to retain prohibited and undersized species that are dead at haulback for scientific purposes. For more information, please see the attached notice or go to the HMS Division webstie at: www.nmfs.noaa.gov/sfa/hms/breaking_news.htm

By the way, that is not my spelling above, that is copied directly from the email notification I got.

NMFS calls commercial fishing..."research" these days. They don't even fake research by stating what they hope to achieve, they simply want to prove commercial fishing is viable in the closed areas.

I have a question concerning the last underlined sentence. The NMFS is going to allow the longliners to keep the prohibited and undersized species that they kill...for "scientific purposes". Exactly what are these boats going to do with it...necropsy? Doubt it. Maybe the scientific purpose is to see what types of recipes they can "experiment" with.

Bottom line, everyone but the commercial interests want this to stop. As we all know, NMFS is nothing more than a shill for commercial interests and serves no proveable valid purpose.

[Deep C]

I guess they weren't satisfied with 90% of the nursery... They want iit all. Christ they now can clog up the entire edge with their gear... Not bad enough that the stock locally has locally plummeted already to the point of not really worth even trying. They want to wipe it all the way back to scorched earth!

I went from five bite a night average to a couple bites a night when they let the buoy boys with their 120 hook sets out there... Now the bite is down to two bites for three nights... Not really worth chasing em anymore and another year will cripple it even further... WHores!

[B.C.]

I believe that is why the Adam stopped fishing for them down there. So much for that fishery. They could screw up a free lunch.

[Jagsare1]

I just don't understand how this just continues to happen. I've never felt more impotent, can't do a thing about it. F'ing gubment bureaucrats.

[Deep C]

The first time they killed the fishery off over night... Do you think NMFS bothers to look at history... Its already way off from what it was even a couple years ago... Coincidence? My scuppers! The ribbon of water we fish really is on;y about five miles wide and not quite a hundred miles north to south... It can't take the kind of pressure even a hand full of buoy boats or even one long liner put in. The numbers are right there in the face of the slutwhores and they still ignore it...
NMFS needs to be retrenched and shut down. They are a burden on already cash strapped NOAA and if enough of us bitch at our senators and congressmen we could easily push that decision through..