Letters on the missing 100 million lbs of halibut that were 'found.'

Last night at the IPHC party at the Edgewater Hotel, we were told by a halibut processor who attended Steve Hare's presentation to PAG that Steve admitted to them that the 100-million pounds of missing halibut that the IPHC cannot account for these past 4-years was caused by "un-reported GOA trawl bycatch." Steve NEVER told that to us fishermen on the Conference Board, which really stinks. I request 2-minutes tomorrow morning to put this on the record at our Observer Committee meeting at AFSC. Denby, this is grotesque and it suggests that the IPHC process, itself, is warped towards favoritism, which we have NEVER believed before, NOT ONCE. We trust Bruce and Greg. But Steve makes us wonder now. Plus, why wouldn't Jim and Ralphie come clean with us yesterday? Don't they think we can handle it?

Can you please call Steve on the carpet tomorrow and make him explain why he failed to fully-inform us fishermen and the Observer Committee of what he knew about the true status of our halibut stocks. Based just on what the Canadians told us yesterday, they'll insist on being compensated for this and we long-liners don't have the deep pockets to pay them off. I'll bet you they start ogling the trawlers ITQs or that $34-billion in the Alaska Permanent Fund (to get the Council's attention) just to bring this issue to a boil when they address the NPFMC in Portland next month. Trust me, they are really pissed off now and it seems unlikely they'll take it anymore(Remember Peter Finch's 1976 performance in "Network"? Double it!)

Don't mean to ruin your day,
TC

Billy,

I am the grandson of Luigi Lepore, who grew up in the 1890's commercial fishing in the Bay of Naples. Before he turned 25, he immigrated to America and worked on the railroads of the Northern tier. By the time he turned 30, he'd married an Irish immigrant woman and settled down along the West shore of Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island to raise his 2-boys and 4-girls fishing scup, tautog, shrimp, blue fish, hard shell (quohaugs) and soft shell (butter) clams and oysters to support them.

Italian tradition dictates (as does the Yupik's) that the first grandson "belongs" to the grandparents as a form of Social Security (ask the elders in Togiak). This was ordained by God the Father in Luigi's mind, even though his daughter, my mother, never bought into it. Regardless, since I was his "property", he decided that early-morning fishing and preparing the catch for delivery to his customers took precedent over my grammar schooling. Since my mother taught in the same school system that I was frequently truant from, there was often Hell and professional embarrassment to pay. But in the East Coast Italian culture of the 1950's and early 1960's, daughters did not raise their voices to their Fathers in front of anyone else, ever.

But after years of my mother's frustration over Luigi continuously delivering me to grammar school by Noon, instead of 9 AM, Father and daughter went out to the chicken coop behind his green and white garage one Sunday afternoon following lunch and screamed at each other for 10 minutes or so, after which my indentured servitude ended and my daily education began in earnest the next morning.

Here's what I remember most vividly from those early years: "Fish always rots from the head!" As soon as possible, Luigi would cut the head off whatever fish we caught that morning, just like clockwork. We even pulled the heads off the bay shrimp shortly after beach seining them, which was a royal pain in my frozen fingers, since I got stuck with the job normally.

So who cares?

If the "Fish still rots from the head," Steve Hare, or someone else, has to be promoted or fired tomorrow morning if the IPHC and NPFMC and NOAA Fisheries in DC are to sustain ANY fisheries management credibility. Know what I mean? Who's been in charge of reducing bycatch (a strict mandate of MSA 2006) since Steve Hare realized that there's been an extra 100-million pounds of GOA halibut mortality destroyed these pasty four years? Anyone? Or nobody?

More precisely,

1. What did IPHC Commissioner and NOAA Fisheries Director Jim Balsiger know about Steve Hare's revelation and when did he know it?

2. What did IPHC Executive Director Bruce Leaman know about his own employee's revelation and when did he know it? Here's what he wrote to me last month.

3. What did Denby, our Observer Committee Chairman and ADFG Commissioner, know about Steve Hare's revelation and when did he know it?

4. What did Eric, our NPFMC Chairman, know about Steve Hare's revelation and when did he know it? Before the Council re-set the 2,000 mt GOA trawl halibut bycatch cap for 2010 at their December Council meeting?

5. What did Doug MeCum, our NOAA Fisheries Alaska Regional Director, know about Steve Hare's revelation and when did he know it? If never, shouldn't Jane (who's been an Oregonian longer than you have, Billy), our NOAA Director in DC, appoint Sue Salveson to replace Doug immediately? Isn't that only fair given that Steve Hare claims that over 100-million pounds of halibut have been destroyed by Julie's and Al's Kodiak trawlers these past 4-years without a single ticket or $20-fine being written and levied by NOAA Fisheries enforcement agents? Sound as fishy to you as it does to me?

6. What did Chris, our NPFMC Council Executive Director, know about Steve Hare's revelation and when did he know it? No one I've met has been able to bullshit Chris since he took the job. Not me, not no one. Was he blind-sided like the rest of us?

Here's the good news, though. Governor Sean is running for re-election in Alaska's coastal communities this year on a "Minimize Bycatch Now" platform. My guess is that if Kodiak's City Mayor and Borough Mayor and Kodiak fishermen, themselves, ask Governor Sean to convene a special investigation during the campaign to iget to the bottom of Halibut-Trawl-Bycatch-Gate by call Steve Hare to testify under oath as his star witness, we might actually put and end to this federally-sanctioned insanity long before 2013, as the NPFMC and NOAA Fisheries now plan, at the earliest!

My money's on Jane (currently on leave from Oregon State University), though. Once she picks up on Steve Hare's revelation, the you-know-what will hit the you-know-what-else. Wait and see. I'm just glad I'm not the one who'll have to tell her to her face. My guess is that she'll be "disappointed" to say the least, meaning severely pissed-off and mad as Hell at whoever compromised her leadership credibility.

Bob Alverson tells me that Jane doesn't suffer fools and their transparent excuses very well. Good for her! Kodiak trawlers flushing $400-million of un-accounted for GOA halibut bycatch down the drain these past 4-years ain't chump change.

We ought to build a tall, bronze statue of Jeff Passer (NMFS enforcement agent) on the grounds of the IPHC at UW and in front of Fishermen's Hall in Kodiak. Jeff has been completely vindicated by Steve Hare after many years of bureaucratic intimidation and suppression at NPFMC meetings.

Who knows? Maybe, with any luck, the Kodiak trawlers will get a first hand chance to explain themselves to Jane, personally, with Steve Hare and Governor Sean standing right beside her. Think we could sell that show out in the Sullivan Arena in Anchorage or in the Kodiak High School auditorium or in the UW Fisheries School auditorium in Seattle? Bet we could!

Regards,
TC

Hi Tom
Noooo…we haven’t put any number on what we think the true bycatch might be. Yes we believe it is higher than the cap but I don’t think anyone could say, with any greater credibility than anyone else, that is x million pounds. In the absence of data, no one has a lock on truth. It’s not just the zero observer coverage on <60 footers, it’s the requirement for only 30% coverage (and the games involved with that) on the 60-125 ft boats.

…and I don’t venture to speak for Dr. Jim.. J

Bruce,

The hottest rumor in Ballard this week is that you and our IPHC staff now suspect that there's a very high probability that closer to 8-million pounds of halibut bycatch is actually being killed in the GOA trawl fishery than to the official 4.4-million pound annual cap set by the NPFMC because of the total absence of observer coverage on the under-sixty-foot trawlers.

Do you think that our lead IPHC Commissioner and friend, Jim Balsiger, will put his foot down now before our annual longline TAC shrinks another 10%-20%? None of us in Kodiak, Seattle or Newport believe that Barack, Michelle, Jane, Margaret or Monica would tolerate for a New York minute this type of reckless over-fishing on their watch, especially because thousands of Northwest and Alaska families depend on the GOA longline halibut fishery to pay their monthly bills and send their kids to school. Think we're wrong?


Regards,
TC

The Death of Science?

To my East coast friends,

"The scientists were so convinced by their own science and so driven by a cause "that unless you're with them, you're against them," said Mark Frankel, director of scientific freedom, responsibility and law at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He also reviewed the communications."

This quote has to do with the swiping of over 1,000 e-mails from scientists at the University of East Anglia. It sounds like the 'science' we see in the North Pacific, and the quiescence of organizations like the University of Alaska and the state Administration. And of course what drives the scientists in Alaska are the big trawl companies and their hired guns in the NPFMC and in their trade associations.

I remember when I was a development specialist in fisheries in state government, my boss said that the lobbyist for the shore plants had come through and threatened the job of anyone getting in their way. True story. And by the way, I like the guy who said, "I don't need science, I've seen it for myself." That's what Greenpeace was talking about too when they video taped and physically observed all the bottom trawl destruction in the Pribilof Canyon that wasn't supposed to be there, and then NMFS just blew them off so they wouldn't have to put it in the record.

Remember when my Blog was 'hacked' and Blogspot took it down? A webmaster told me that it could have been done by posting vulgarity in my comments section. That was one day after I had a discussion with Mark Vinsel, the Executive Director of United Fishermen of Alaska. UFA later bragged about their prowess in Internet subterfuge in an Anchorage Daily News blog. That is, before the Highliner blog was discontinued. (One UFA functionary was maybe talking too much for the larger cartel to tolerate? The guy got replaced as President of UFA by Joe Childers.)

The point of all this is that my e-mail account is not secure, and a patent attorney told me once not to send anything by e-mail. So when we started e-mailing about sending a floating buying station to Kodiak, immediately a measure iwas brought to the Kodiak City Council to ban 'floaters' from Kodiak waters. That would be unconstitutional under two constitutions, and the gall of these people isn't the point either. The point is that they don't see any common ground with regular people. And in taking this step, they have suddenly revealed a lot about themselves. ('They' is represented in large measure in Kodiak by Julie Bonney, dba Groundfish Data Bank.) Julie Bonney has also asked the NPFMC to consider banning 'floaters' from the Gulf of Alaska.

These requests would be laughable and never be considered worthy of putting on paper by the most callous 'privatizer' if it weren't for the zealousness of large numbers of people in this sector of natural resource extraction. It is a small group in the overall scheme of things, and their goal is to maximize their share of the taking of the marine resources and/or being a quisling to it all. (I just read that there was a Nazi collaborator in Norway named Quisling.) It is the usual function of a democratic government to protect the 99% of us who actually own the resource, but in this case the government is complicit in the theft. Does Jane Lubchenko have a personality disorder or something? Anybody know?

The trawlers in the Gulf of Alaska and the processing companies there have put the fear in not only government functionaries, but a whole swath of society. In 2009, the local newspaper, the Kodiak Daily Mirror, stopped writing about the subject of 'privatization' of the marine resources. I'm sure a lot of people have thought of me, "That's all well and good to stand on principle, but you if you want to get a job in the industry you just can't speak up." And I have been told that to my face, but have never entertained the thought of compromising my principles.

Where is this going? The Bering Sea has been lost. The Gulf of Alaska is being lost. Don't let the same thing happen to the Gulf of Maine and other swaths of Atlantic fishing grounds. The federal fisheries management council system is not bottom-up management. You are bottom-up management. And this winter is the last chance to exercise your constitutional right to help manage common resources properly. It won't be 'common' after this. I gave four years of my life to shed light on all this. Please consider taking part in these new initiatives to alter our fisheries management paradigm, constructively and tirelessly. Vaya con Dios.

P.S., Consider how much easier it is to go to Council meetings on the East coast compared to the North Pacific where they conduct meetings far removed from the fishermen. I don't know how far it is from Portland, OR to Dutch Harbor, AK, but that's the range of meeting places. That alone partly explains why Alaska's fisheries were 'lost.' It's like being invaded and all your crops being confiscated, like when one million Ukranians starved to death when the Communists took their crops under the guise of socialism. Here they call it 'rationalization,' but it's still just stealing.

Transparency is Fish Management King

This is what I was talking about on Facebook: "RFA(Recreational Fishing Alliance) is recommending that the US Department of Commerce and individual governors in each of the coastal state coordinate a more transparent appointment process in the future,(to the federal Fishery Management Councils) thereby allowing potential candidates to be fully vetted within the fishing community as required under federal law.

This reaction was prompted by the appointment of PEW connected folk to the Mid Atlantic FMC. This right there is why our fisheries are in such bad shape. Maybe these prople are God's gift to fisheries management, but I doubt it. Not only was the appointment process not transparent, (no opportunity for public vetting) but the PEW and NOAA agenda is not transparent. They can't and don't seem willing to justify their 'catch share' agenda.

I've observed the process very closely since joining the Alaska Commercial Fishing and Agriculture Bank in Alaska in 1984. Not a slam-bam-thank-you-mamme study. Nor has my analysis been 'purchased,' just ask my kids who can't get a red cent out of me. There is no transparency in the federal fishery management council system. East Coast reformers may be surprised to know that their nice neat 'best managed fishery in the world' Bering Sea is managed thusly thanks to a timely $200,000 plus grant to the university that the famous 'two-pie theorist' worked for.

Decisions are made behind closed doors, public comment is ignored, so folks don't bother showing up for the most part. (The North Pacific Fisheries Management Council will hold meetings out in left field, like Portland, Oregon, or Dutch Harbor, Alaska. Have you ever inquired how much it costs to fly to Dutch and back. It's like going on safari to Africa. If you have to ask the price, you can't afford it. Not much public inclusion there.

What nails down this connection between secrecy and poor fish stocks is a study done by researchers at Dahlouise University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. They looked at a ton of factors present in fisheries management regimes around the world and found that the one that stood head and shoulders above the rest when the fish have been wiped out is a LACK OF TRANSPARENCY in decision making.

This is how you get a lot of experts saying that the fish are headed for trouble. Then they can change their minds and say the fish could survive. It's because we CAN change the way we do business on the ocean. It's up to us. The way NOAA is going at the moment does not represent change, so we're still on course to get what's behind Door No. One.

I'm not saying that 'catch shares' don't have some role to play in some fisheries, but not as a panacea for all fisheries, and not at the exclusion of other well founded strategies that support the economic well-being of fishing families and communities. You ignore those two and your management tools are like tying fire-brands to the tails of foxes and turning them loose in the wheat fields.

Some people might wonder who all these folk are up in Halifax who come up with these studies. I haven't been to Dahlouise U, but I flew over to Halifax from Anchorage, Alaska to visit Technical University of Nova Scotia (TUNS) and I can vouch that the folks I saw have their stuff together. I thought that using a couple of 280 foot clam catcher/processors was a bit much for the clam resource, but that TUNS was the best fisheries product lab I'd ever seen. (Those clam boats are a private investment matter, but the dollars involved do intimidate fisheries managers.)

And, I don't know exactly how to put this, but like in the U.S., if I had been single I could have made huge strides professionally that trip. That kind of thing is an example of what I'm talking about on transparency. Maybe we should call the PEW Group, or the Environmental Defense Fund, NOAA's 'midnight mistress.' Or is it the other way around? In these affairs, one never knows, does one?

People are people all over, looking for ways to benefit themselves, so if you don't have transparency, you are going to have food fights for sure. Same as the Native Americans had around here in Oregon over the Camas fields. Herring food fights have been going on for a long time in the North Sea. And transparency won't come either when local newspapers like the Anchorage Daily News and the Kodiak Daily Mirror won't discuss anything of substance, or print letters from advocates for the fish and for the public. A lot of folks might be surprised to learn too, that political correctness is just a new term for deviousness and is a recent phenomenon.

Now, there are some cases where closed door decision making works, and maybe we need more the sort. I refer to the the panel of ex-judges who arbitrated in the case of Pacific Gas and Electric vs the People of Hinkley, California. The ground water under Hinkley was green and full of hexavalent chlorine, but the government had no threshold levels of green drinking water to say PG&E was in violation. So as people were dying right and left around the toxic dump site, PG&E denied responsibility, and might have gotten away with it had it not been for some objective men working alone. But these men's records of decision making were transparent, as former public officials.

If NOAA is so concerned about social well-being, they should create protections to enhance transparency. We would like to see NOAA make good on their own planning and strategy documents which states clearly that they are collaborative and transparent. We would like to see in their own words how privatization works to benefit society and the fish stocks. They need to make the argument themselves. They need to walk the talk they have put in print. Here are some things from their Next Generation Strategic Plan (NGSP:

Stakeholder engagement
"Details societal benefits and how NOAA will achieve them."
"Generates agreement on challenges and opportunities."

NOAA hasn't detailed the societal benefits of 'catch shares,' nor attained any level of agreement on the use of this management tool with the public at large, or if it even is a legitimate one. If they call 'willingness' by only the potential recipients of instant wealth to accept it, 'agreement,' we have a big problem. Under the 'no-transparency' model of fisheries management, we'd better start learning to grow community gardens on the fish docks.

Freedom to choose share-cropping the ocean

The Tyee, an online magazine from British Columbia, has an article on privatizing the rivers in B.C. Sound crazy? Think privatizing all the ocean's fish like NOAA wants to do. British Columbia started this fish privatization business, and countries we sometimes compare them with, like New Zealand, were right there with them. Turns out, someone has been pushing these ideas in the think tank, the Fraser Institute, and now the Campbell government is fully on-board.

'The Family' at 'C' Street in Washington has also been preaching 'privatization' to the Washington elite for decades: their 'trickle down fundamentalism' would have the rich have it all and then bestow blessings on the rest of us as good Keepers of the Faith, and as their mood swings on any one day. Part of this mentality is that these rich and powerful folk can do no wrong, as they have a 'mandate' to govern, and be Keepers of the Wealth as well.

This is how really wrong these folks are. People have tremendous freedom in our countries, right? Then in the Fraser Institute's mind, we have the freedom to sell ourselves into slavery as well! Isn't all that convenient thinking for big fish companies who want to own the fish. Big political contributors/investors don't want to actually be on a boat, but if they had a way to get the fish and get someone else to harvest their fish, they could be generous in return, wink, wink.

Ecotrust Canada came out with an socio-economic analysis of the Individual Transferable Quota system, or catch shares, that Canada implemented and it isn't pretty. It's called 'A Cautionary Tale About ITQ Fisheries.' They call the new breed of landlord who has managed to buy all the shares and get people to go to sea for them - 'sealords.' And as you can imagine, sealords wouldn't pay much for the harvesting subcontracting service.

Tradition doesn't have a leg to stand on anymore, thanks to various cultural revolutions. So do we just get over the fact that fishermen are going to be just equipment operators for the owners, at whatever pay is the whim of the day, and if they don't like it, the owners will just hire lower paid help? Hence, freedom to enslave oneself.

You've heard me and others use the term 'sharecropping' fishermen before. These are people who used to be able to just go joust with the elements and seize hold of ocean resources out of the common fisheries and claim them as their own. Long tradition there - yielding the culture and nomenclature of 'fishermen.' So now that people are starting to just plough the ocean floor for all the Michael Milk'ems, what do we call them and their task-masters?

Using fishing techniques that literally plough the ocean floor is a real yardarm knot in itself. That right there proves the fallacy that the new owners of the fish will respect the ecology of the oceans. Jane Lubchenko of NOAA knows this and so do real lifestyle fishermen. She was around Oregon when OSU researchers concluded that bottom trawling extinguishes 30% of the species complex on the bottom: target fish, bait fish, invertebrates, vertical structures like coral and sea whips that the immature fish need for protection, etc.

Lots of places on the continental shelf have been so smoothed over by trawls, they might as well keep trawling now. Sea whips and coral are old as redwood trees, so they wouldn't grow back to provide habitat any time soon anyway. I'm amazed that any fish at all can live in these areas. It points to the resiliency of the marine ecosystems, especially if there is scientific fisheries management and not management by fisheries lobbyist, as currently practiced in the U.S.

Ending trawling is going to be like ending racism. You're not going to stop it, but you can at least stop lynching fish stocks. But don't hold your breath with this NOAA administrator. They figure now the reason all the sea mammal life in the Bering Sea is disappearing is 'chemicals.' Ignore the fact there is a giant fleet of factory trawlers out there that makes the 'Deadliest Catch' boats look like kayaks.

'The Privatizers' have reason to believe they can get away with this theft of the commons, because there is plenty of precedent and they have figured out how to get armed force to administer it. They want us to believe their engineered theories and have us just accept that Michael Milk'em will be a wonderful protector of the seas.

Going back to privatization of the rivers too, we are getting a taste of it in this country as well. A village in Alaska on the Yukon River got a lesson in River Privatization 101. Most of this has to do with the 'rights' of a corporation to put electric power turbines right in a fast moving spot in a river. With the exorbitant cost of fuel to make electricity in Alaskan villages, Fort Yukon, Rep. Don Young's home-town, got the notion to get a permit for a good spot nearby. When they checked, they found that it had already been taken by a company from the Midwest, as had all the other good spots on the horizon. We all might be surprised what all has been sold off around us that we thought was free.

One last point, one that I make all the time. Remember how if you can tell a lie long enough and loud enough......? Then remember how often you have heard the expression, "the North Pacific has the best fisheries management in the world." Let me give you some facts.

1. The federal Fisheries Management Council up there opened the king crab sanctuary to bottom trawling and wiped out the king crab. Only a remnant remain.
2. Pot fishing for black cod was outlawed, so now half the black cod is stripped off fishermen's lines by sperm whales. (Think "Don't feed the bears." Not to mention possible over-harvesting due to non-reporting of losses.)
3. The king salmon are disappearing coincidentally with the huge by-catches of same by pollock trawlers. Ya think?
4. The number of herring gillnet permits in Western Alaska has dropped from 252 to 51, coincidentally with by-catches of up to 100 tons a tow by trawlers in the Bering Sea. There is still no sanction on this practice.
5. In one recent year, 17 million pounds of squid were accidentally destroyed, food for lots of sea creatures at their different life stages, as herring are.
6. Northern fur seal, sea lion, and sea bird populations are steadily diving coincidental with the growing effectiveness of trawl fishing technology and sifting more water for the pollock needed to keep the floating factories running.
7. Millions and millions of pounds of halibut are destroyed as by-catch every year, to the point where they cut public catch down. You didn't think the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council (lobbyists for the big fish companies) would cut their own production down?
8. The North Pacific started with lots of fish and crab; the foreign fleets didn't make a dent up to 1976 when they were pushed beyond 200 miles. They did wipe out Pacific ocean perch as the preferred species, but they've come back in spades, and there is a huge food fight to 'own' them. The vastness of the fisheries resources has helped hold up total tonnage, as has technology advances in the face of declining stocks. (Remember 'canyon buster' bottom trawls, and mega-trawls that a flock of Boeing 747s could fly into at once?
8. Fisheries reporting by NOAA Fisheries Service has covered up these inconvenient facts. Alaska hasn't changed appreciably since Territorial days when Washington ran the place on behalf of large campaign contributing canning companies. The only change is that now trawl companies are king, and people like Ted Stevens gave them a leg up financially which is going to be hard to reverse.

Solutions?
1. Don't give away things that aren't yours to give away, especially without the owner's(the public's) knowledge. Dr. Lubchenko is no King George.
2. You'll never have real fisheries management if the federal fisheries management councils are manned by representatives of moneyed interests, or are not required to recuse themselves when there is a conflict of interest. That system needs overhauling first of all.
3. My pet concern: stop commercial fishing close in to towns so Noah Finclip can row out and and catch food for his hungry family.
4. How do you stop all the 'spin' from all sides? Do like on the Columbia River - have a Judge decide. They have a record run of sockeye this year. Or require a peer-reviewed study to back up claims, like who is inherently more committed to ecosystem health. Jane Lubchenko says commercial fishermen are the most altruistic, millions of other folks say they are slash and burn types.
5. I'm no more impressed with a guy snagging king salmon out of a Rogue River holding pool than a trawler 'dumping' a deck load of salmon.(Oops) So, engage other fishermen to enforce the rules and make it pay for them. Pay them for their observations of all sorts. They are on the grounds a lot more than bureaucrats.

More about this later

Oh Brother, Where Art Thou Quota Shares?

Sometimes a real fired up piece shows up on the Internet, such as this from Montauk, that deserves to be framed. I will add one thing; one of the two skippers who went to D.C. to testify long ago against the crew, declared his sincere regret for that testimony as he lay dying.

"When the Individual Fishermen's Quota system was being debated in Alaska there was a massive effort to placate crew, and some concerned skippers, that crew would be taken care of. There was no provision anywhere in the statutes to recognize thousands of career fishermen's rights to future participation, because they weren't an all-seeing, all-powerful boat OWNER.

The National Marine Fisheries Service traveled around Alaska assuring everyone that the crews would be the beneficiaries of a tens of millions of dollars "Displaced Fishermen's Fund." If there was such a pot of money to get those NMFS guys so fired up it sure disappeared fast. If you Google search that fund now it directs you to the state labor department. And everyone knows, except for maybe the folk who pulled this bait and switch, that fishermen are 'independent contractors' in the eyes of the IRS and not eligible for state assistance.

It was told by one fisherman in Kodiak who was keeping track, that 80% of the 'jobs at sea' went away when catch shares/IFQs came to town. I remember the days just prior to this, in the ports in Alaska, when the bars would be hopping and the economic multiplier effect was more like a mosquito hatch on the tundra in June. Was overcapitalization occurring in the harvesting sector? Maybe, but nobody was going bust except the usual ones who shouldn't have been out there in the first place. In Alaska, however, just the talk of more privatization in the post salmon-limited-entry period, got the gold fever going real good and all kinds of odd folk got boats. All this robustness came to a screeching halt when halibut and black cod IFQs came in.

The majority of IFQ owners soon were out-of-state residents. The more agressive boat owners bought up small blocks of IFQs wherever they could get them. They figured they would rise in value like gold in wartime, and they did. Newer entrants had a harder time still getting into the fisheries. As human nature is, the boat owners found a new way to grow their business besides that.

They then started requiring potential crew to go out and buy IFQs to bring on board to even get a job. And of course all crew percentages started to take a dive as skippers' loan payments for IFQs rose. At maturity, the IFQ/catch share system, allows the owner of the 'shares' to lease out his shares to someone who will share-crop them.

Basically, the wealth is being siphoned out of the fishing regions and fleeing to nice places to live all over the world. This is especially true in the trawl sector, especially the owners of multiple vessels. Who sometimes own shore processing plants.

Then you get one who buys a $50 million business jet and flies politicians all over the place, especially to good fishing lodges. At this point you have huge cash flow and can get your people in as Congressional aides. Who in turn write white papers (or just put new names on others' papers) and walk them over to any agency in D.C.

As that all transpires, these 'fishermen' cum processors, put plans in motion to gain private rights to the fish for their plants as well as their boats. If you doubt this can happen look at the effect of lobbying on healthcare, banking, or credit reporting agencies. If these processors, can start to control whole fleets through fear of blackballing, they have no fear of competing lobbyists.

Now, you might say that scientific management of the fisheries will shore up the whole coastal economy, because the law requires it. That fishermen will take a vested personal interest in maintaining healthy fish stocks. Not!!! Anyone who doesn't think fisheries management runs on raw political bargaining is smoking crack.

It's the rare reporter who writes on this subject for the major media (this here is strictly commentary). It's complicated first of all, and you don't want to be on the outs with these big players if you draw a salary. Organizations and agencies don't stick their neck out, especially to protect anyone. (Maybe with NOAA calling for a national review of NMFS enforcement lapses, honesty, truth and justice will reign finally. Good luck on that.) And some fishing magazine editors have received their reward and gone to work for the big processor (in the office tower, not the sky).

To this day, folks who band together under the processor banner, look for plants to buy for their 'production history.' Or they advance the fiction that they are boxing and marketing their catch to 'grandfather' into this when processor quotas happen. Did we hear that a big West Coast processor bought a plant on the East Coast now? It's significant who that processor is. Their banker would be well aware of these plans, as a free chunk of the commons would vastly increase the value of the company. You could expect the banking lobby in D.C. to get behind this as well.

So, 'catch shares' has a history of morphing into processor shares and share-cropping fishermen, unemployed hordes of crew and skippers, empty boat harbors and a flight of small shore-side businesses, and in Alaska's case anyway, plundered and wantonly wasted stocks of fish. This is fact, not theories like that 'vested interest' malarkey from people who have never been around the ports.

The next time you hear Jane Lubchenco say we need 'catch shares' to save the fish, simply ask her what makes her think that. There is nothing new under the sun in fisheries, just a willful ignorance of the facts makes some things look new and appealing. And for Heaven's sake, don't listen to Alaska Rep. Don Young. The current system he supports has 'fired' the majority of Alaska fishermen, given over half the processing/marketing opportunity of Bering Sea stocks to Japanese companies, and wiped out the king crab and king salmon for the most part.

Those stocks were especially vulnerable to the "Rise of the (Fish Factory) Machines" that Don oversaw. If the reader has any interest in the future, don't take Don's advice. He has his anchor out in the the past with a good ten to one scope on it. The only thing I can say about Don winning his last election is that Alaska voters are maybe like Alaska bachelor men, the odds are good, but the goods are odd. When I lived in Alaska I voted for Don once or twice, but I no longer eat the milk of simplicity, but the meat of the truth.

Remember, the big money is in marketing. The big players love privatization as it helps them abuse price transferring. This siphons the wealth out of the U.S. in a BIG way, like IFQs do on a regional basis. The good fish products we produce goes overseas for value adding and product laundering. We import 80% of our fish now, and lots of it is suspect farmed fish. Wouldn't it be nice if our kids could jump in a economical boat and go out and catch something to support their families. The fish and the coastal economies don't need more of the same, sold as something new.

A whole new look at how we do oceans is in order. Just peruse NoTrawlZone.Blogspot.com for a wee bit, a blog from someone on the front lines. He still leans forward when he walks, hence proving the old saying that if it ever stopped blowing in Western Alaskan everyone would fall down."

Oceans Week, or Exxon Week

Some very strange things going on in Washington. Oceans Week is sponsored by Exxon and friends. The events are staged by them and moderated by them under the guise of a do-gooder foundation. Some enviros have been sucked in, but the respected ones haven't. Here's what Food and Water Watch had to say about the whole happy mess.


“Yesterday, one of the panels for Capitol Hill Oceans Week, Feeding a Nation: The Role of Fishing and Aquaculture in Today’s Economy, touted parceling out our oceans to a few big businesses as the best way to feed U.S. consumers and alleviate pressure on over-stressed wild fish. These ideas at the most basic level are ocean privatization – giving over what should be a public resource, our oceans, to private entities to use for their own economic gains with no benefit to the general public. Sadly, these ideas seemingly are also openly backed and supported by U.S. government agencies charged with conservation and management of natural ocean resources, as they participated in the program.

“The panel was designed to convince members of Congress and others that catch shares of fish, known in policy circles as individual fishing quotas (IFQs), and ocean fish farming benefit the economy and the environment. While major issues like job loss and pollution were admitted as potential issues with these programs, they were immediately dismissed as unimportant.

“Fortunately, no one bought the obvious attempt at a sales pitch. In reality, most IFQ programs force many historic smaller-scale fishermen to stop fishing, or pay exorbitant prices to buy or lease fish quota to continue fishing. Often it is large-scale fishing operations that are rewarded with the most shares of the quota. The problem is, many of those businesses got big by fishing hard with gears that are associated with negative ecological impact – like too much fish being caught and habitat damage.

“Ocean fish farming, the mass production of fish in large floating pens or cages in the open sea, is also at the forefront of debates over equitable use of public resources and was overwhelmingly backed by panelists. They presented the tired and unsupported mantra that a U.S. ocean fish farming industry would benefit the public by providing new jobs, reducing pressure on depleted wild fish populations and lessening U.S. dependence on imported seafood products that are often unsafe for consumers. However, most people now know that ocean fish farming programs often primarily benefit the corporate owners of the facilities rather than consumers. The United States exports more than 70 percent of the seafood produced here. We our seafood to countries willing to pay higher prices for fish produced in accord with U.S. health, safety, and environmental standards. Likely, this will not change dramatically with the coming of ocean fish farms. The industry is intended for profit—therefore fish will probably be sent elsewhere for bigger dollar returns—likely leaving the United States with just the negative environmental and economic consequences.

“As for jobs, the salmon farming industry in Scotland, Norway, and British Columbia dramatically expanded production in those regions, but because of more mechanization, added no new jobs or even decreased employment. Worse than not creating new jobs, is the potential for offshore fish farming to reduce existing jobs. For example, when farming of salmon became popular, from 1992 to 2001, the value of the wild Alaskan salmon catch plunged from $600 million to a bit more than $200 million, a drop of more than 60 percent. As the market was flooded with farmed product and prices crashed, many fishermen were forced out of business. Although prices of Alaskan salmon have since recovered, thanks to intense marketing efforts, many fishermen were permanently displaced. These effects trickle down. As the number of fishermen dwindles, support businesses, like marine supply stores and dock facilities, will also suffer, risking more job loss and hurting the economies of coastal communities during a national economic downturn.

“Capitol Hill Oceans Week should not be used as a forum to promote potentially ecologically destructive and economically devastating programs for our oceans. Rather, this week should be an opportunity to discuss ideas for more innovative management and technologies, and to explore more sustainable options to meet our domestic seafood needs.”

Privatization only helps the banks

Lets talk about NMFS chief Jim Balsinger's wish to expand the Individual Fishermen Quota system.
Over the years there have been numerous fishing industry stooges who have pushed privatizing of the fishery resources. And it wasn't too difficult; fishermen who were the larger players saw they could "own" a piece of the fish stocks forever, or until they wanted to sell them for inflated prices. A real neat deal for them. Not a neat deal for smaller boats, new fishermen, the U.S. taxpayer, and communities. And now not a neat deal for many of the 'winners' as well.

These privatization shills, by and large, are now sitting pretty with continued consulting fees from the big operators they helped in gaining ownership of swimming fish. The injustice of this was noted way back in America's formative years by an early day Supreme Court decision. Seems a guy had been chasing a fox all over on his horse, but when it ran through the village, a guy popped it with his squirrel gun off his front porch and claimed ownership. Ownership came to mean, in the fisheries, 'pulled onboard.'

The wealthier guys kept at the politicians until in recent decades they attained ownership of the foxes in their dens and moving around anywhere. And now they have hirelings running after them for low wages. Now if a fox is eating your chickens, just fuggetabatit. You'll be thrown in jail for shooting it. And I'll stop here before I slide into how the tanneries cut themselves in on the 'ownership on the hoof' scam. Take a look at these missives from a Kodiak 'fish hireling' on the evolution of IFQs there at ground zero of fish privatization in America.


"Friday there was an ad in the KDM for some Kodiak home area Halibut IFQ's, a breathtaking $5 under the price of the last few years(now $23 asking price for one pound of IFQ). It's the first price fall in a steadily rising price since passage of the law 15 (?) years ago. (I talked again to that guy with the 12,000 lbs for sale. I was the only call on that ad he told me. So we can assume that the real market price is $8 to 10 under last year's $28. Anybody that has bought in the last few years owes more than their shares are worth, and the lender owns their home and boat. But they still have to straggle out and get their fish.)

The drop is one small part of the larger scenario. From the start, IFQ's were a board trading game. You can get State loans easy by pledging your house and boat, so everyone ended up by leveraging themselves to the max. And all the predictions were right about the effect of IFQ's on the fish price, they do raise the price to the fisherman, lockstep with the rising value of the Q shares. Last fall the Halibut price went way over $4, it's $2.80 now.

This would be no problem in a free fishery which regularly weathers price drops. But it's going to sink and ruin just about all the dreams of avarice of a large share of those few who remained after the law put 80% of Halibut fishermen out of business within a year of passage.

My family(that I catch their quota for) has $240k worth of Q's, or had,,,It's $184k now and falling and it's not going to pop right back. I called the guy with the Q's. Sure enough, the poor sod had a big payment due. He said his phone wasn't ringing off the hook(to sell out).

And the good part(that's a joke) hasn't even started yet. The POP(Pacific ocean perch) quotas will double and double and double. My best estimate, after sucking up every single thing I could about POP for more than a decade, is that the stock has at least a sustained yield of 100 thousand metric tons annually; it's 10k mt now. For every added pound of POP there will be added the by-catch of the Black cod and Halibut that we thought we owned with our Q's.

For me it means at least twice as much time on the water this year to make ends meet. Which is great cuz we fished very few days last year for a lavish payout, and it's a blessed relief to get out of town.


Hmmm, this sounds like a letter to the editor. I think I forgot who I was writing to once I got wound up. But isn't it bizarre? We all think Q's have changed the fishery and that's that, but we ain't seen nut'n yet."

The fisherman spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly to the media, was afraid for his life, was just giving a sketch before full details are revealed, cited office policy and was afraid he might get his bouys cut off. Heck, he'd be shunned by the Untied Fishermen of Alaska, the Pacific Seafood Processors Association and NMFS worse than a car salesman at an Amish picnic.

With that exhausting formality out of the way, here's the precedent, or lack of it, used by other commercial fishermen to justify their 'rights' to public resources:
"The U.S. is a steward of all natural resources---sunfish, ducks deer and stripped bass---all of them. THE CONCEPT THAT A PRIVATE COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISE IS NECESSARY TO PROVIDE THE PUBLIC WITH THE ENJOYMENT OF THESE RESOURCES BY SELLING THEM TO CONSUMERS SO THEY CAN EAT THEM WAS REJECTED BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND STATE WILDLIFE MANAGERS BEFORE 1900. THERE IS NO BASIS IN ANY FEDERAL COMMON LAW, ANY WILDLIFE LAW OR THE CONSTITUTION FOR SUCH A PROPOSITION"

Now I'm really confused. Why is Jim Balsiger promoting IFQs if it's such a lousy deal for America? Maybe he will be retiring to that big office building in Seattle that houses all the other bought and paid for editors and fishery managers. Nevertheless, this is not NMFS policy, Obama's policy or any other public policy, to give common property resources to a few derivatives dealers.

And I'm not just saying that because my forefathers pioneered in fisheries and never handed down private rights to the commons, they never would have thought to demand any. And in the case of a goodly number of ocean fishes, the stocks are going down, down: so much for it being a better fisheries management system as well. Don't look to an IFQ system to slow down the annual 'dumping of two billion lbs of 'the wrong kind' of fish. IFQs don't do that.

The NMFS should be protecting the food chain first, on behalf of the American people, then let a commercial harvest occur in a way that is sustainable. Trawling, whether on the bottom, or midwater, is not sustainable. Where in the world has it ever been sustainable? There may be a way to trawl sustainably, but it hasn't been used yet, and there is no political will to make it happen widely if there was.

Everyone wants to participate in divying up particular fish schools, but when each share is a percent of not much, then it's the fault of the 'regulations.' Everyone needs to get on a little hill and take a look around at the forest health a minute instead of focusing on one tree or two.