It's viewed as one of the cruel ironies in America's fishing saga that, with the arrival with the Magnuson-Stevens Act 34 years ago, a series of regulatory nets dropped over the decks of the boats has been entangling, frustrating and disabling the original libertarians of the American experience.
That saga plays out throughout the documentary film "Truth: Fisheries Crisis or Government Mismanagement," and its showing Monday night is being hosted by the city of Gloucester, with Mayor Carolyn Kirk also slated to moderate a discussion of the film after its viewing.
NOAA officials declined to be interviewed for the film, and turned down an invitation to Monday night's showing, according to the mayor's office.
The fish are the supporting cast and the stars as well as the evidence.
They are used to present proof that an alien force โ in the form of a permanent governmental bureaucracy, with a portfolio of degrees and a blind spot for ways humans have learned to work the ocean โ has gained dominion over the watery world.
With this power they have embarked on a crusade dedicated to saving the fish from fishermen.
As "Truth" shows, notwithstanding all the conservation, fishermen still find themselves forced to push fish overboard, wasting them, to avoid breaking the illogical and perverse rules.
Salty Harold Loftes, the middle fisherman of the family, helps underscore the absurd rules of the game โ requiring all the stocks in the mix of bottom fish to be restored to optimal biomass at the same time.
"Your backyard can't be filled with deer and coyotes at the same time," he observes. "Nature has a balancing act of its own. It's impossible to have the high levels at the same time, but that's what the system demands."