“NOAA Chief Driving Small Tuna Fisherman Out Of Business”ff

Source: Gloucester Daily Times

It’s a bit scary to see 2011 begin just as 2010 did — with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration considering a dire new anti-fishing tactic that flies in the face of even its own positive science, yet would help chief administrator Jane Lubchenco advance her goal of driving more small, indepedent fishermen out of business.

And we can only hope that fishermen, waterfront business owners, and representatives of coastal congressional lawmakers so flood a series of hearings on an absurd proposal to grant the bluefin tuna “endangered species” protection that NOAA and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke will have no choice but to throw this Center for Biological Diversity petition right into the trash where it belongs.

Even international data shows that the bluefin stock in the western Atlantic has been effectively been rebuilt. Indeed, the only voice loudly urging a reduced U.S. bluefin allocation at a recent Paris conference was NOAA’s Lubchenco, the pseudo-scientist who refuses to consider even her own agency’s stock data.

Yet NOAA is hosting hearings to actually consider whether this rebuilt stock is somehow “endangered.” The meetings open in Sandy Hook, N.J., next Wednesday, then move to Boston next Thursday and Portland, Maine, a week from now before concluding Mississippi and North Carolina.

The Boston meeting is scheduled for 10 a.m. at the Mariners House, 11 North St. And hopefully, Gloucester’s and New England’s fishing interests will let their feelings known loud and clear. The only real choice, after all, is to let tuna fishermen continue to earn a living harvesting a stock they’ve helped restore.