January 19, 2015 — The New York Times on New England groundfish – so seemingly close but so very off target.
On December 14 the Times had an article titled Water warms and cod catch ebbs in Maine by Michael Wines and Jess Bidgood. Obviously the article focused on the observed water temperature increases in the Gulf of Maine and the impact on local fishermen. After reading it one is left with the feeling that the plight of Gulf of Maine and other New England fishermen is due to some combination of overfishing and increasing water temperatures.
The article wasn't notable for what it contained, but rather for what it ignored, which is the added – and very possibly dominant – impact of predation on our inshore and offshore fisheries.
But the Times isn't alone in ignoring the impacts of predation. Fisheries managers haven't shown much interest in it, possibly because all that they are able to effectively manage is fishing. Why pay any attention to anything that you can't effectively, or for that matter ineffectively, manage? Equally predictably, the anti-fishing ENGOs have shown zero interest, because they seem all too willing to ignore anything above and beyond – or let's make that beneath and below – selling the fallacy that fishermen and fishing are to blame for most of the oceans' ills.
There are many species, primarily marine mammals, that have experienced population "booms" since the passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972 and the Endangered Species Act in 1973.
View the full PDF of the opinion at FishNetUSA