Romantic Cod and Fish Populations?

[Newt]

@winter@:

Newt - I never killed a bison in my life. never even saw one to be honest (perhaps once at Flamingo land but I didnt kill it).

The do have some populations on a few of the larger western ranches that can be hunted - by permit only and expensive though.

 

Never appealed to me. The idea of spending big bucks to shoot a large and very hairy cow (or bull) just isn't too exciting.

 

I did eat some bison when I was a youngster. A Boy Scout outing in New Mexico and a local rancher made one available to us. Good stuff. Beats hell out of beef. Shame it's so rare and costs so much that I couldn't afford to try it a second time.

[Ian Burrett]

This has been a fascinating thread and hopefully we have all learned something from it.

 

The last thing i want to do, is see people put out of work but the reality is jobs are going to go in the fishing industry anyway. Old Black and White photos show fleets of Herring trawlers

stretched right across Drummore Harbour, whereas now 6 lads struggle to make a living catching Dog Whelks (Buckies)in the winter and working lobster creels in the summer.

I am sure every harbour throughout the UK will have similar pictures.

 

If you accept the fact the fish stocks are diminishing and without change there will be nothing left, then it follows that eventually the majority of commercial fishermen will be out of work.

 

So is it better to make some harsh decisions now, even though some could lose jobs and allow the sea to regenerate, before it is to late, or do nothing and have the sea barren, with inevitable corresponding job losses.

 

I would be interested in finding out how many Charter boats skippers have lost their jobs in the last twenty years becasuse of the lack of fish. I suspect it would run into hundreds. Add to this, the jobs lost in hotels, petrol garages etc etc. and you could say the commercial sector is directly responcible for hundreds of job losses.

 

It would be interesting if you all could reply, stating how many charter boats there used to be and how many are operating now, from your local Port.

[Leon Roskilly]

From the Recreational Ses Angling Oral Evidence Session to the EFRA parliamentary sub-committee in December ( http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_com..._uk_fishing.cfm ):

 

 

(Full transcript at:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/c...iii/uc12202.htm )

 

Q206 Chairman: If any of you want to add anything at any time, please feel free to do so. You are recognised now at least as playing a bigger part. I just wonder what impact the problems of the commercial sector and in particular the conservation problem, which is basically what the strategy unit report is concerned with, has had on sea anglers.

 

Mr Cox: I can probably answer that. I operated a charter boat in the Thames estuary taking anglers fishing from 1975 to 1995. It was a new fishery, very unexploited and over the first four or five years of that operation we developed it to the point where there were some 60 charter boats operating in the Thames estuary from North Kent, from Southend, the Crouch, the Blackwater estuary and the Colne estuary. In the late 1970s/early 1980s, monofilament gill nets, these so-called walls of death, were introduced to catch rays and bass. They decimated not only the ray and bass stock, but also the stock of non-commercial species such as tope and smoothhounds, which anglers prize. Now, in my own port, which once boasted 16 charter boats, there are one and a half full-time boats. In the greater Thames estuary, we are probably down to 15 or 20 boats. Those livelihoods were as equally valid as the livelihoods of commercial fishermen. I raised three children on the proceeds of a charter boat operation. I now have a small tackle business which is also impacted by the lack of fish in the sea and the lack of activity from recreational sea angling.

 

Q207 Chairman: Is that paralleled over the country?

 

Mr Cox: Yes; yes.

 

Q208 Chairman: So you are suffering because of the activities of the commercial boats.

 

Mr Cox: Yes. A number of jobs have gone out of existence in coastal communities where recreational sea angling has been the target as opposed to commercial exploitation.

 

Mr Ferré: There is a real frustration that we cannot even get people to accept, though there are signs that they are beginning to accept it, that it is an actual problem. There seems to be a hide-your-head-in-the-sand approach to it. We know, because we are out there every week, what is happening to these fish stocks. In many cases they have just disappeared and in many cases, because they are a by-catch and discarded, they have disappeared for no value. So the people who do thrive on them have lost them and the people who do not particularly want them kill them. It is just a terrible equation.

 

 

Tight Lines - leon

[Ian Burrett]

Thanks for that Leon. You must have some filing system.

 

If those percentages are mirrored throughtout the country you are literally talking about hundreds of Job losses.

 

When i started in 1988 there was 17 local charter boats and now its down to 5 licensed boats,in the whole of South West Scotland.

 

Have you any ideas how I could find the charter boat losses? It would be easier now as we have the coastguard website with licensed boats but pre "the codes of practise" boats were either unlicensed or licensed with local authorities.

[Ken Davison South Wales]

I have just had a wry smile (near enough) at the discusion on the job losses.

 

It is sad when substainable work such as charter boats start to lose ground.

 

But when we refer to commercial fishing losses one only has to look at the car, steel,mining and banking industries in recent years to see far greater losses and the vast majority have moved onto new careers.

 

When the mining and steel industry took a hammering in South Wales people thought it was the end of the area.

 

Today however with a much cleaner enviroment, healthier employment and far less danger in their lives people are prospering.

 

I have spent my life in a volatile construction industry and my last full time employment was brought to an early conclusion by a drop in oil prices. But when I look back i find that I have always moved on to better things.

 

I now assist my wife running the family garden centre, we have a reasonable income and I have much more choice as to when I can do the things I enjoy.

 

When we first started the business it was done to secure employment and an income.

 

This was a drastic change from receiving a monthly salary in secure employment.

 

Today I look back and wonder what all of the fuss was about.

 

Things change but we can adapt

[Ken Davison South Wales]

PS. All the very best for tomorow Leon, I am 100% certain that we have an excellent champion in our corner.

[Jaffa]

Ian, any idea how long ago the councils required them to have licences? If not we could surely collect the numbers ourselves for quiet a lot of ports. A few easy local ones like Dundee none , Montrose none, Lerwick 1985 - 1995 none, and I'd guess still zero.

 

Arbroath I can find out if needed, but the Girl Katherine has certainly been on the go since 1984 (i know because i measured her keel when it was laid ! ) . A lot of others have come and gone, a lot part time/ hobby types as well over the years.

 

One question is how you can say for sure they went through lack of fish; at least 1 Arbroath one packed in a couple of years back when new environmental legislation prevented them hauling the boats onto the harbour beach for defouling etc. Also there has been a raft of safety stuff brought in that must have driven boats out of the business.

 

Not sure the figures would be easy to make safe

[Jaffa]

Ken, this is where i think its important to understand the industry and that its different all over.

 

Shetland is a group of rocks in the north Atlantic and fishing/fish farming cannot be replaced by anything else, at least not for the foreseeable future. Orkney is much less dependant but.

 

BTW both have always adapted very well to change, its nothing new to them

 

The story varies a lot in the rest of Scotland, so I would guess there are areas like Oban that might be better off without some forms of fishing and using their waters in other ways.

 

When all those old industries you speak of were shut down not everyone adapted either; the cost to us all in police and hospital bills etc has been huge.

[Jaffa]

Leon, thanks again for that link " Chaos in Fisheries Management"

 

http://www.fishingnj.org/artchaos.htm

 

The most interesting thing I've read in ages; between that and your explanation of chaos I have a lot of dogwalking on the beach to do

 

Couple of thoughts; Two things that helped preserve some whitefish yet were never intended too;

 

1. The oil industry and its exclusion zones around rigs and gear.

 

2. The legislation to stop salmon poaching with drift nets that banned monofilament nets up here before they even got started. Wonder how many of Davys skate would be left if that had been allowed. There was certainly one boat that got built and geared up netting for flat fish Oban way in the early 1980's but it was never allowed to work.

 

Unintended consequences going well for once

 

Chris

[Ken Davison South Wales]

Jaffa,

 

In the areas that you mentioned there is good reason for maintaining commercial fishing and areas like this could be given some form of priority.

 

Yes the miners and others did fight to try and keep their jobs and it got out of hand. But that only supports my statement, they thought they were fighting to survive, without mining they could see no future and they were desperate. They could see whole communities splitting up with people being scattered far and wide.

 

It didn't happen that way, when the dust settled things worked out for the better.

 

I was employed by the MOD on ROF units, the best position I ever had in the UK, the cold war ended and so did my job.

 

I was employed by a company carrying out a project for British Gas and one Monday morning in strode a gentleman from the official receivers, the company went bust with £255,000,000 pounds worth of work on the books. British gas took over the management and retained the work force but I was out on my ear.

 

Bottom line "No one gave a monkeys toss" and all of this went on whilst I was trying to raise a family. But I survived and I went on surviving.

 

I was junked purely on economic grounds, here a whole ecosystem is at stake.

 

What I am saying is the loss of a job is not the end of your life.