"We've had an outbreak of common sense, I hope it's contagious." –David Goethel
That comment from New Hampshire fishermen and New England Fishery Management Council member David Goethel pretty much captures our own reaction to — and sense of wonderment over — the National Marine Fisheries Service move to drop a dangerous and reckless mandate for dockside monitors to access the "holds" of off-loaded fishing boats to ensure there's no hidden fish stashed away to beat the NOAA quota system.
And it stands even moreso as our response to the comment by Gloucester-based NMFS spokeswoman Maggie Mooney-Seus, who indicated the agency is "considering eliminating dockside monitoring entirely." Indeed, that is the only logical step the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's fisheries service should take, unless a boat is somehow flagged as showing some probable cause that would warrant such a search.
Read the complete editorial from The Gloucester Times.