Why Are We Importing Our Own Fish?

nytimes.com ^ | June 20, 2014 | PAUL GREENBERG

[Nervous Tick]

>> 300 lbs of Bluegill and Bass

I’ll buy cornmeal and frying oil appropriately. :-)

[servantboy777]

Yes, it is about politics as well. Politicians push through insane trade deals that to you and I seem ludicrous. We say to one another at work or gatherings, “why would our leaders pass such a lopsided trade deal largely favoring foreign interest?”

Paying back favors to corporate multinationals in turn for campaign cash, junkets to opulent getaways, Superbowl tickets perhaps. Be assured of one thing, these people care about position/power/wealth, they care little about national identity. Patriotism/national identity? That's so yesterday.

[Fantasywriter]

“Vermin: Animals that try to eat your nishikigoi”

http://www.fishchannel.com/fish-magazines/ponds-usa/2012/koi-glossary-words.aspx

[This entry in the glossary is funny, because every other koi-related term is Japanese. ‘Vermin’ is the only English word in the entire glossary.]

[rhoda_penmark]

LOL, that’s what he gets for paying that much for fish. ;-)

[Mase]

This is about onerous government regulation in this country, not free markets. Try and start a business today in the fishing or aquaculture industries and you will learn that this is true. The EPA (and every other government agency) is out of control, and it is killing industry and entrepreneurs.

[jttpwalsh]

Very good - thanks for your reply !

[jttpwalsh]

No doubt - and the Hawks were happy ! Thanks.

[PIF]

And while you were looking at the fish in the case, did you see any display covered completely in green ice, or even covered with any ice at all? Chances are the only ice you saw was beneath the fish or only partially covering the fish on top. (Green ice is newly made ice at 28 degrees or lower. Most ice in fish displays is recycled [warm] ice.)

If that was the situation, what you saw and likely smelled was rotting fish. Fresh seafood has NO or slightly briny odor (if you can smell it, it is rotten). Fish is not meat, and must be treated differently, else there will be odors (rotting) and a great amount of loss - one of the reasons consumer fish prices are higher than they should be.

We import seafood mainly because the US fishing industry is mostly out of business compared to what it was in 1960s and 70s. What’s left has to struggle against incessant over regulations designed to put one fishery (or segment of) out of business - usually from the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), OSHA, and the EPA. Not to mention the various states which also regulate State fisheries - usually with the same goal: ridding the USA of commercial fisherman and commercial fisheries - the only exception is Alaska. All of the organizations mentioned are run for and by environmentalists (and by extension - socialists).

There is a similar movement for the farmers: see the San Joaquin Valley, Cal and Klamath Falls, Or. It was only a decade or so ago that the the US became a net importer of food. Whoever control the food and water, controls the people.

This is a national movement which began in the 1970s. It has many fronts: The Nature Conservancy (nature.org), American Rivers (americanrivers.org), World Wildlife Fund (WorldWildlife.org), Natural Resources Defense Council (nrdc.org), The Sierra Club (sierraclub.org), The Ocean Conservancy (www.oceanconservancy.org), Oceana (oceana.org). Other contributors include the Pew Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and hosts of other groups.

When I began as a commercial fisherman in 1973, the US was a net exported of food, and seafood exports were the third largest contributor to the US Balance of Trade. This movement gathered its first wind with the Boldt Decision (United States v. Washington) in 1974 and its second with their SCOTUS victory in Washington vs Fishing Vessel 1979. The Treaty Tribes which these decisions ostensibly benefited, were only pawns as they, decades later, realized. The movement had succeeded in destroying the Washington salmon fisheries and eliminating the non-political management of the Frazer River salmon runs.

Before Boldt and SCOTUS minor infractions were misdemeanors, after minor infractions were Class C felonies. After Boldt and SCOTUS we needed to learn case law in order to fish and to defend ourselves at sea. Several people were put in prison for the crime of fishing. Several more were killed. But you never knew this because it was never reported, even the reporters who did cover the stories had their stories round filed and were let go.

During this time, the US farmed salmon industry began. At first, they claimed they would be non-competitive, but five years later became a major reason for the decline of market for commercially caught salmon. Soon farmed salmon were everywhere. People came to love the taste of bottom paint (cuprous oxide), growth hormones, antibiotics, food dye, etc in their “fresh farmed” salmon - without which these “fish” would be a very pale shade of white and virtually tasteless. There was even an irradiated “year round, in and out” variety which you could store all summer in an open container without smell, rot, or attracting insects.

So when some hapless scallop farmer hands out the keys to his livelihood to some guy from another country, who’s surprised at the result? Everything people eat will eventually be “farmed” (manufactured) - get used to it. It is how socialists will control everyone - all done while others slept or ignored the warnings - many of which I have written about for the past 20 years.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Some years ago, a guy visited our coal mine from Ohio and brought with him some M-500s.
These were like a quarter stick of dynamite. Fishing was easy with those babies...

[familyop]

Import businesses are very lucrative, when emissaries of such businesses can influence regulations against new domestic production businesses and private real property rights with the help of state and local regulators and pensioned “property values” NIMBYs.

[familyop]

"Then during the top of the fourth inning, the umpire (NOAA) changes the rules, offering advantage to the other team and restricting your team ."

Because the other team was politically influential and pushed for changing the rules. That's the rhyme and reason. That's where it starts. Politicians and their appointees do the bidding of their mo$t favored con$tituent$ against lesser constituents. Example: many little lumber mills have been shut down or prevented from starting over several decades in local county meetings by associates of big lumber mills.

Another example: new EPA rules against wood heater manufacturers perpetrated with fake lawsuits by state and local governments and businesses valued by both political parties. In five years, Step 2 of the rule will eliminate manufacturing and sales of even the currently most costly wood heaters of all kinds (including pellet stoves and masonry heaters).

There are also builders' rackets against residential owner builds, thus planning, building and other local regulations.

On top of that, consider the monstrous amounts of federal pork shoveled to some of the most remote and sparsely populated of counties (with majorities from either political party) through states.

[familyop]

"I’m a little SE of you Eric.
I wish I knew an old farmer near me with no kids who had a huge farm pond filled with catfish that he didn’t care about."

There should be some ponds with largemouth bass in them. The more brush or water weeds, the better. In one of those, try a large, noisy topwater lure (like a Jitterbug) at sundown and for about an hour after sundown. Pull it slowly, so that it makes the most noise (plop, plop, plop,...).

I caught a few between six and a little over eight pounds that way long ago. An open face spinning reel and a rod with large eyelets can be low priced and afford great control for that. Be sure to set the drag light enough for patience for fighting a big one (avoid snapping the line).

In the morning, from sunup to an hour after sunup, try a large, purple, plastic worm. Run the point of a large hook into the top end of the worm, out the side and with the point of the hook just barely into the side of the worm again. Jig it, so that it looks active.

Sundown to an hour after with that topwater lure is best, though.

[familyop]

“An open face spinning reel,” the kind that spins the reel and bail around when reeling, with the bail needing to be flipped over for casting.

[roofgoat]

familyop, I have a Heddon Lucky 13 Plug I like to “pop” early evening. Caught a lot of fish on this old 35 year old lure. Even hooked a massive tarpon on it...for about 5 seconds.

I don’t fish much anymore like I used to bit still have all my old lures.

Jitterbugs, Zara Spooks, Daredevils, Rapalas, and the go to bait - Rat L Traps.

When I fished FL waters, used 10” Tom Mann Black or Watermelon Rubber Worms Texas Rigged.

[roofgoat]

I have spinning reels, and I still have my Shimano Bantam 1000 baitcaster I bought in 1982. Fished all over the country and even in Belize with it.

[ilovesarah2012]

Something else I didn’t know:

Commercial Fishing Deaths -— United States, 2000—2009
Weekly
July 16, 2010 / 59(27);842-845

Commercial fishing is one of the most dangerous occupations in the United States (1). During 1992—2008, an annual average of 58 reported deaths occurred (128 deaths per 100,000 workers) (1), compared with an average of 5,894 deaths (four per 100,000 workers) among all U.S. workers. During the 1990s, safety interventions addressing specific hazards identified in Alaska resulted in a significant decline in the state’s commercial fishing fatality rate (2). During 2007—2010, CDC expanded surveillance of commercial fishing fatalities to the rest of the country’s fishing areas. To review the hazards and risk factors for occupational mortality in the U.S. commercial fishing industry, and to explore how hazards and risk factors differ among fisheries and locations, CDC collected and analyzed data on each fatality reported during 2000—2009. This report summarizes the results, which showed that, among the 504 U.S. commercial fishing deaths, the majority occurred after a vessel disaster (261 deaths, 52%) or a fall overboard (155 deaths, 31%). By region, 133 (26%) deaths occurred off the coast of Alaska, 124 (25%) in the Northeast, 116 (23%) in the Gulf of Mexico, 83 (16%) off the West Coast, and 41 (8%) in the Mid- and South Atlantic. Type of fishing was known in 478 deaths; shellfish (226, 47%) was the most common, followed by groundfish (144, 30%) and pelagic fish (97, 20%). To reduce fatalities in this industry, additional prevention measures tailored to specific high-risk fisheries and focusing on prevention of vessel disasters and falls overboard are needed.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5927a2.htm

[familyop]

You have plenty of experience then! There are some big largemouth bass in some of those little farm ponds in the Ozarks and all the way up into northern MO. Some farmers stocked them long ago.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Yes. The classic Garcia reel.

I have a couple of these from the 1950s.
They're a little noisy when the bail flips to retrieve...

[Tilted Irish Kilt]

familyop:" Another example: new EPA rules against wood heater manufacturers perpetrated
with fake lawsuits by state and local governments and businesses valued by both political parties."

There is email evidence of collusion between enviro-nazis and the EPA, whereby the EPA states that it would welcome a lawsuit .. so that it could lose.
When the EPA writes memorandum of understanding (essentially one of their own self-written laws, without benefit of Congress oversight)
and then regulates an industry (ie :Wood burning stoves) and refuses to release to Congress the alledged scientific date leading up to that memorandum
they should be held in contempt of Congress, and the agency director locked-up until that data is released for oversight.
The EPA ,IRS, DOJ, DHS, ,DHHS ,NOAA have consistantly "overreached" their authority under this administration; to curb any one , or more of them, is like playing "Whack-A-Mole".
I have never seen any administration in the last 50 years that is more deserving of incarceration for conspiracy to defraud, defame , or intentional injury to a nation,
since the "Vichy regieme " of France.
Expect no better situation under Boehner ( the Chamberlain of our times).

[xzins]

Because other countries have great reserves of fish, the same as Saudi has great oil reserves. Our fish don’t have a pipeline to bring them to market, and our fish refineries are antiquated and underproducing.

So, until we permit fish fracking, a better policy is to use others’ reserves up rather than our own.