Outrage across the nation and around the Globe. That's the primary reaction to a story that broke earlier this week involving the forfeiture of an 881-pound tuna caught by a Massachusetts fisherman last week.
WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) Nov. 23, 2011 — Outrage across the nation and around the Globe. That's the primary reaction to a story that broke earlier this week involving the forfeiture of an 881-pound tuna caught by a Massachusetts fisherman last week. It appears a vast majority of Americans – and a number of people globally — share in Carlos Rafael's palpable sense of disappointment at having to give up a catch that could have yielded him half a million dollars.
Last week, Rafael made the catch of his life only to have to forfeit it to federal authorities on returning to shore. Rafael and his crew had been fishing for bottom-dwellers with nets; by law, fisherman can only take tuna with rod and reel.
The news broke on Monday. By Tuesday, the story had hit the AP wire and was headlining in papers from coast to coast, from the Boston Globe to the San Francisco Chronicle. It went overseas for appearances in the UK's Daily Mirror and the Emirates 24/7 in Dubai. It bounced through the blogosphere, from the Drudge Report and the Outdoor Life Magazine blog to online news venues like Yahoo!, where it was Tuesday's top story. As of Wednesday, a Google search with the fisherman's name and the word "tuna" generates more than 150,000 results.
And if gauging the reaction to the story is of any consequence, the public is outraged and ready for a regulatory "sea change."
"Sorry, Charlie… Another example of an entrepreneur– with legal permits, yet! — being deprived of his livelihood by the brain-dead Save The Anything crowd," writes David on the Monterey County (California) Herald website.
On News.Gather, Angela M writes: "This is ridiculous… And I would like to know who is going to profit from this if him and his crew do not. This is when I feel that our represenatives [sic] and government have failed us."
Others poked fun at the regulation that a huge fish should be caught by rod-and-reel, "Sweet, I wanna catch one with a harpoon like I'm freaking Captain Ahab." Wrote Colhandlukeri on Reuters.
On Fox, retfed observed that the trouble began when Mr. Rafael told the truth about what happened. "Any wagers on how many honest fisherman from now on are going to tell the Feds what they want to hear? Well as an old fictional ship captain once said; 'The floggings will continue until morale improves'! "
On the San Francisco Chronicle site, AmericanDad made an observation embodied the sentiments of many others the spirit of the law should be enforced but this hard line enforcement of the letter of the law might be going too far, "He was fishing for bottom stuff and a tuna got snared. If he were net fishing for tuna, then bust him. A fluke? Let him have his fish."
And the comments are not just from Americans. On Yahoo!, LANA writes: "your government is being unfair to people .. those men work hard for that money to feel their family . government need to give back the money to them .your government is sick."
With national television producers clamoring to schedule time for his story, the tale remains a news sensation."
"I got people calling from Ontario, Canada, who want to interview me," says Rafael. "Fox News, CBS, CNN … Everybody wants the tuna story … and I want to forget about it."
While Rafael, who operates 15 commercial groundfish boats, had been paying to renew various tuna permits over the past four years, he never caught one and, he says he was unaware of the rod-and-reel rule.
"To catch a fish like this is like one in a million," says Rafael. "It's like winning the lottery."
But even if he did have to relinquish the biggest catch of his career, his bragging rights have gone from friends and family around the Thanksgiving table to the world stage.
Journalists interested in interviewing Mr. Rafael should call 508-995-8989
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