C-90 sent me this NPR Report.
In New England, fishermen are bracing for what may be unprecedented restrictions or even a shutdown of cod fishing in the Gulf of Maine. Federal regulators say new data show cod as dangerously overfished, but fishermen say they don’t believe that, and say drastic restrictions would be catastrophic. NPR’s Tovia Smith reports.
TOVIA SMITH, BYLINE: Three years ago, scientists found plenty of cod around. After years of overfishing, they said the stock had rebounded. But new data this season shows just the opposite.
The key lines are here:
GIACALONE: Which one’s wrong? What’s to say that this one’s not wrong and that one was right? You know, this doesn’t pass the red face test.
SMITH: Indeed, fishermen here say data showing dangerously low stocks totally contradicts what they’re seeing every day.
Peter Shelley with the Conservation Law Foundation concedes trying to assess fish stocks is not an exact science. I’ve heard fishery science compared to forestry science, except you have to do it with a blindfold and the trees keep moving.
Shelley says scientists are looking into several different explanations for the disparities between the 2008 and 2011 data. But unless the new reports are totally rejected, he says, fishing restrictions will be mandatory.
I’ve done a bunch of work in stock assessments, and it indeed is that much of a pain in the ass. You see you can fly over the ocean in a helicopter and look down into the water and there could be a billion fish below you or none. You run sonar and you can see “Stuff” and often get a reasonable idea if its marine life or not, but overall telling the subtle differences between cod, haddoock, Pollack, or even Shrimp on a sonar scan is hard to do, and impossible to do with any accuracy. The most accurate way to count fish is by trawl surveys where you net the fish and actually COUNT them….but that is nothing short of educated guessing, as most of the species counted are killed in the process, and how are you to know if you nailed the biggest school in the area, or if that just the thin spot in a rich fishing ground. Also if even a small part of your unbelievably complex models the data produced from the survey is 100% junk.
And then comes the point that you’re observing a system that you are actually destroying with your observation.
And then comes the catch 22 with any government agency that is both in charge of monitoring problems AND enforcing laws and restrictions. If the Cod data showed that the stocks were recovering and in good shape (Something fishermen have been observing as they fish…not to mention this scientist over his years in the Gulf of Maine and George’s Bank) if they declare the stock “Recovering” well then there isn’t much need for further research or regulation. Next word from Washington is that their budget has been slashed and they’ll need to shut down labs and terminate employees.
Not unpredictable that their data ALWAYS points to threatened stock and need for further regulation. This would be quaint if they weren’t taking away the lively hood to a massive and centuries old industry with their antics.
Sad really.
The disparity between the 2008 data and the 2011 data is caused by the difference in administrators chosen by President Obama in 2009.
Lysenko-ism at its best.
As someone said in a slightly different context,
“When the errors always favor the bank, you have to suspect that more than chance is at play.”