Tuna meeting Results and Comments

[Captain Greg Sears]

First of all thank you all from SFC. SFC proved to be a major presence in the meeting with over 100 participants at the meeting. Because of your input I was pushed to the front of the line to speak my piece. The response to me was overwhelming and I was humbled by your support, Thank you all. We are not out of the water yet do not give up we need this kind of response at the Maryland meeting March 17th I am planning on spending some money and going to that meeting also. My biggest problem I had with NMFS is they refused to take responsibility for making decisions. I kind of made an outburst when one of the attendees asked who made the laws. Mark from NMFS responded he had no control. I responded by reading a government document that explained they have all the control (called them out as Lier's) The response was they shut up and sat down. One of the attendees mentioned we need to get Congress involved this is absolutely true. Congress are the only people who can threaten their jobs. Now its time to start flooding your congressman's emails , Fax machines and mail box's. We must ban together and keep fighting this fight. We need lawyers, Biologists, Economists, and more to help us develop a legal battle. The NMFS has deformed our character by making it look like the Bluefin tuna industry makes no money and has no social or economic impact. They claim the entire Bluefin industry only created 2.5 million in revenue in 2007. This is crap and does not look good to our government it is not worth fighting for an industry that only creates 2.5 Million in revenue. The other issue that bothers me is NMFS charts show that our Imports for bluefin are higher than the amount of fish we catch here. This means we are buying tuna less than 73" from other countries because we can not supply our own domestic supply. So the moral is don't let us catch them and make us buy them from other countries. This is complete F#$%# Crap. Explain this to your congressmen and you will start getting a response Money is number one in their eyes. Keep the Fight going do not quit!!

Captain Greg Sears
Sons of Tuna Liberty

[Questsportfishing]

most do not really know what it is like to fight for something you believe in and in this battle you see things that would really piss off the average person living next to you if they realy knew what was up. I watched the salmon rights given to the indians in Washington state when I was a kid and they destroyed a fishery that brought millions of dollars to the state let alone to the people who had the boats, motels and everything to food , gas, etc. .. I then watched as the indians stretch a net out across the rivers and another block net to make them jump into the collector .. nothing could be done after that pen and ink was on the paper... the salmon fishing was destroyed by greed, mis-management and now Westport is a sleepy little town where literaly hundreds of boats used to crank up at 6am every morning.. now silent. I have seen people kill dolphin in Costa Rica when they get into the nets... and I have even seen the big factory ship pulling the sargasa grass out of the sargasa sea off Abaco Island Bahamas.. I see these guys down here 'push' the limits of 4 swordfish fedral and 3 state and argue about it for months..The BOTTOM LINE is that We the American people are the most self Regulated country in this world with fishing lic. on the rec. side and quotas on the commercial side.. keep the good fight! Keep your faith in what you do and thanks for speaking up... I hope you win what your heart tells you to do. Ted Testerman

[neilinov]

Greg:
Do you have a template letter that we can send off to our Congressmen and Senators? If we all have something similar heading their way we will be more united in our case.

[Captain Greg Sears]

Coming soon I will create a letter stating the facts.

[clcharette]

Greg, great job on your presentation. I applaud you and the other speakers who took the time to be heard.

I don't like what he said about 7 months to make a regulation change, thats not going to work. NMFS is not working to protect our interest and we will lose our fishery if we don't be heard by someone higher up on the food chain.

[chumslicker27]

Nice work guys. I would like to get a copy of that template letter so I can send them out... thanks

[BuffaloHunter]

Where is the MD Meeting going to be held?

[Captain Greg Sears]

Dear Congressman, Senator or Government Official;

I am a fisherman in the United States and a good portion of my business is Tuna fishing for Bluefin Tuna. We have a serious issue with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).
The problem –
The United States is signatory to ICCAT (International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna—a group of 20 nations plus the nations of the European Union (approx. 20 additional nations) and is bound by ICCAT mandates.
If US total BFT catch continues its current catch trend (below ICCAT allocated quota), the US stands to lose approximately 50% of its quota in 2011. This loss will be felt across the spectrum of US tuna fisherman including both commercial and recreational through our established percentage quota shares of the total US quota
ICCAT will reassign the unused portion of the US quota to another nation such as Mexico, Japan or Canada (it could even go to Belize) in 2011. In a nutshell, 50% of a natural resource that has traditionally been the livelihood of US Commercial Fishermen and one that is highly regarded by recreational anglers is in serious jeopardy of being permanently lost to another country or countries.
While US commercial and recreational fishermen fish under the most stringent and conservative self imposedregulations of any country in the world, ICCAT’s longstanding “use it or lose it” quota policy will serve to punish US fishermen for being conservative and going above and beyond the call of duty to rebuild Western Atlantic BFT stocks.
The US Commercial BFT retention limit is determined by NMFS and it is currently set at 73”. While the US uses 73” as its minimum commercial size, Canada, Japan and Mexico use the ICCAT minimum length of just 45”. Thus, US fishermen are required (by US/NMFS regulations) to release BFT that are perfectly legal to sell in other countries that fish the Western Atlantic. In essence, the United States’ unilateral higher level of standards and efforts (73” minimum for commercial fish) to preserve this magnificent fishery will result in not only United States loss of quota, but also will have a direct and immediate negative impact on the restoration of the bluefin population (decimation of juvenile fish).
If the US BFT quota is reassigned because we can’t fill the 2009 and 2010 quota, it will most surely be assigned to a country that uses 45” as its minimum commercial length. Further, any country that receives the US unfilled quota will be able to fish the 45” limit until the end of the stock rebuilding program which ends in 2018! This is likely to result in our US giant BFT quota being filled by another country with thousands of juvenile fish. If this whole thing seems unfair, it is because it is terribly unfair and a very inefficient if not impossible way to rebuild a fish population!

The worst part of this problem is that we have not been able to catch our quota and our country has been importing more fish than we catch, and our exporting is very low or none. Most of these imported fish are under 73’ our limit to sell a fish. The NMFS has deformed their paperwork to show a false under revenue for our fishery. This makes people believe this industry is not worth fighting for. The moral to this is we are not allowed to catch our suggested ICCAT quota, therefore causing our country to spend more money importing to supply the US demand. We need to change this, there is no reason we should be buying these fish from other countries when they are in abundance right here in our own back yard. Please help us convince NMFS to allow us to catch our quota so we are not sending money to other countries that do not have the same conservative morals as our own. The east coast charter fishing industry alone creates millions if not billions of dollars in domestic income, not to mention revenue of hotels, restaurants and many other tourist industry related business. NMFS refuses to add this to their account of revenue for this industry. NMFS has sand bagged us and says we only create 2.5 million revenue throughout the entire industry (Falsifying Government Paperwork). Also think of the money spent importing these fish to supply the US demand. The fishermen in this country are failing as business owners. I believe we have reason for legal action to be taken. We need some Economic Stimulus, Thank you for your time.

A Failing US Businessman
Your name here
If you have any questions please contact Captain Greg Sears at 781-545-6516 or email him at fishing@massbayguides.com he is very familiar with the issue and has all the paper work you may need to help you in your decision to work with us.

[Fin Chaser]

I think in Silver Springs, MD on the 17th. Not sure, but I think that's right.

Dan

[Captain Greg Sears]

A meeting for suggestions and comments to NMFS regarding the 2009 regulations will be held at;

march 17th, 2009 4pm to 6pm Location NOAA 1301 E West Highway Silver Springs MD. 20910

Directions http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Noaa%2...N&hl=en&tab=wl

OK southern Group I want more than 120 people at this one make a good show I hope to be there to meet you.