Fishermen to March in Washington, D.C.
(02/04/2010) On Feb. 24, fishermen of all stripes are expected to descend on Washington, D.C., to protest what organizers of United We Fish say are policies that are destroying the fabric of coastal communities. The rally will take place on the steps of the Capitol from noon to 3 p.m.
Representative Tim Bishop, who recently accused the National Marine Fisheries Service of compromising the system of fisheries data collection on Long Island, will be on the steps with the fishermen.
Montauk’s Viking Fleet has chartered a bus that will leave the Viking Dock at 4 a.m. The bus will stop at the Hampton Jitney headquarters on Montauk Highway in Southampton at 4:30 a.m. to pick up rallygoers, and again at 460 County Road 111 in Manorville (King Kullen parking lot) at 5:30 a.m. The fare is $40 round trip per person.
Reservations can be made by calling the Viking Fleet at 668-5700, or by booking directly on the Viking Web site, Vikingfleet.com.
Although the rally was organized by the Recreational Fishing Alliance to protest “the unintended negative impacts of the Magnuson-Stevens Conservation and Management Act” (the law regulating marine fisheries), commercial fishermen are expected to participate as well.
Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association said the federal fisheries service was regulating with an increasingly heavy hand. She said the agency’s recent decision not to renew its contract with the Cornell Cooperative Extension for the collection of biological samples and landing statistics was “disconcerting.”
“It seems to crystallize a disconnect that is endemic to N.M.F.S. itself, a lack of respect for the fishing communities, and no input or voice by fishermen into a regulatory process that we are governed by daily,” Ms. Brady was quoted as saying.
Ms. Brady’s comments seemed to be underscored by the results of an internal investigation of the fisheries service’s enforcement policy made public late last month by Todd J. Zinser, inspector general of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
“In short, we found systemic, nationwide issues adversely affecting NOAA’s [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] ability to effectively carry out its mission of regulating the fishing industry. These issues have contributed significantly to a highly-charged regulatory climate and dysfunctional relationship between NOAA and the fishing industry — particularly in the Northeast,” Mr. Zinser wrote in a memo to Jane Lubchenco, the administrator of NOAA.
Jon Schneider, a spokesman for Representative Bishop said of the upcoming rally in Washington: “Mr. Bishop is very supportive of what they’re doing. The fed needs to do a better job of working with the fishermen.” Mr. Schneider said the decision to replace the Cornell Cooperative Extension with a contractor without the kind of cooperative relationship that has existed for 15 years between data collectors and fishermen was an example of a disturbing trend.
“Everyone fundamentally agrees that sound data is the basis of sound regulations. For some reason, N.M.F.S. seems to have lost sight of that,” Mr. Schneider said on Tuesday.
On the recreational side, the East End’s charter and party boat fleets have seen quotas shrink and seasons shortened.
Capt. Paul Forsberg of the Viking Fleet of party boats said the government was not adhering to the requirements of its own management laws.
“There’s more and more fish in the ocean. I just got back from Washington,” Captain Forsberg said yesterday. “They admit that scup (porgies) have increased 209 percent. The biomass keeps increasing and yet we’re taking severe cuts. It’s not the way the law was written. We’re going in the wrong direction. We’re supposed to go the other way to a sustainable yield. We’ve been promised all these years.”
Captain Forsberg said he expected between 20,000 and 30,000 commercial and recreational fishermen from the East and Gulf Coasts to attend the rally.