F R O M T H E C R O W E ’ S N E S T
Taxpayer’s Heated Pool
The New England Fisheries Management Council, is preparing to decisively throw the New England ground fishing industry under the federal bus. The decision to make drastic quota cuts is based on scientific data everyone involved has said they do not understand.
Many of those fully informed about the developments that led to this decision doubt its wisdom. Included among the doubters are scientists and managers who helped formulate the plan. The NEFMC admits total failure to date, yet refuses to listen to the possibility of an alternate course of action in this case.
Those with everything to lose are the fishermen, their families, infrastructure, the fishing communities, and a way of life. The others, the non-losers, are the hundreds of solid six figure bureaucrats who will get a taxpayer’s check regardless of the outcome. More fish, less fish, no fish – they are all winning positions for them to play.
Environmental Non- Governmental Organizations funded by grants, tax breaks, donations and mystery money support any plan to cut quota. They make their salaries by making fishermen disappear.
This arrangement is a measure of the distance between the beneficiaries and the victims who can hardly be said to have had a counted vote in the decision making process.
The NEFMC deciders are specialists in management, not fishing. The scientists that managers use for supporting data are number crunchers not marine biologists. The scientists who go out in a boat to count fish to feed the number crunchers are not fishermen. And council members who vote on these decisions are often none of the above and never all of the above.
Driving quota down below where it is financially feasible to fish removes fishermen from the equation. Making fishermen then pay 50% of the mandated observer cost is a kick well below the teeth. It says we count, you don’t, we’re in control of this resource and you’re out.
The taxpayer funded Council has failed, it has admitted failure and now it is moving forward on measures it’s own scientists have said are not soundly supported by the science.
It’s beyond ignorance, it’s beyond arrogance, it’s beyond what a democratic society and congress should put up with. It’s bureaucratically inbred incompetents treading water in the taxpayer’s heated pool.