[Ramius]

Overfishing is the key. The same thing is happening in Alaska. Modern fishing methods have simply become exceptionally efficient, and in even the best of the fishing grounds, nature is not keeping up with our ability to harvest.

I am certainly no eco-freak. I am on the side of the fisherman. But today's catcher-processor boats are just too effective and there are too many of them.

What is needed is more farm-raising of fish and shellfish, but the eco-freaks are fighting this everywhere it starts up. But just as the demand for meat would not be met by hunting wild game without wiping out whole game populations, the world demand for fish cannot be met anymore by hunting in the wild. We can farm it, just like we did with cattle so many years ago.

My .02

[Tailback]

AMEN! The outrageous regulations preventing US seafood farming are criminal!!! The mostly pristine waters of the Oregon Coast could provide large amounts of jobs to families and towns devastated by the destruction of the timber industry.

[snooker]

"Overfishing is the key. The same thing is happening in Alaska. Modern fishing methods have simply become exceptionally efficient, and in even the best of the fishing grounds, nature is not keeping up with our ability to harvest."

EXACTLY. In FL the story was, 'why are there no big speckled trout' in the 10k islands? Answer, shrug never has been. OK most people accepted that. But then along came the net ban.

Now here it is years later and big trout are everywhere.

Fish simply don't' stand a chance against the onslaught of technology. Without limits on take and size there won't be any fish left anywhere. In CA they found that if the stocks of sardines get depleted too far, the fish populations cannot recover. Guess what, they depleted the stocks too far and now the sardine numbers are just a shadow of what used to be. We were doing the same thing with mullet in FL before the net ban. Both species BTW are significant food species for other fish. Bottom of the food chain.

We almost lost the redfish to the 'blacken redfish' craze a few years back. Took many years of stocking to revive the species. Strict controls on size and limits were necessarly. It looks promising.

Man must use common sense when dealing with wildlife. In the early 1900s market hunting was banned, soon I would expect to see all but subsistence and sport fishing banned. And then only with strict limits.

Technology will kill off all wildlife if we allow it.

[Mamzelle]

As someone who cooks and eats a lot of fish--it amazes me how affordable it has become just in the last few years. I can remember when salmon was a rare luxury, now we have it so often as to get tired of it. Just this after noon I baked a lovely fresh cod--

Just an aside. Whatever else is happening, prices are not going up.