Stop Catch Shares NOW! to keep fishing.

[Fishnut]

Please sign onto the votervoice against Catch Shares. We have to stop them before the become a reality in Washington State. It is getting very close. Recreational Fishing Alliance, Coastal Conservation Association, Puget Sound Anglers, and many others oppose this funding.

http://www.votervoice.net/Groups/PSA/Ad ... &SiteID=-1

To all,
I am asking you, no pleading with you, to send this voter voice alert to our Senators and everyone you know-ASAP!!! Everyone you know and your family needs to sign this. There is not another thing you can do that could save our fishing more than sending this. The Catch Share program was built by the Environmental Defense Fund who is destined to shut down our fisheries federally. Their Vice Chair was Jane Lubchenko who is now the NOAA administrator and they are shutting down fisheries all up and down the East Coast, Gulf, California, and now Oregon and Alaska. They are eroding away our fishing and leaving less of us to fight them.

In Alaska they are shutting down 40% of the SE recreational halibut fisheries. Since when is it NOAA's job to shut down businesses? They can be managed through quotas, seasons, gear restrictions, limits, etc.The people that have not had a full five years of previous recreational fishing logged in SE Alaska are shut down. Imagine if you leveraged everything you own to become a charter operator. You bought a boat or two, sold your house and everything you own, took out a loan on a lodge-your life dreams, and have been in business for three or four years. You are trying hard to build a successful business and you get the notice your license has been revoked. You and your life savings were just flushed down the toilet by "Catch Shares."

Several Articles taken from the Glouchester Times, I could not say it better,

"So just what is a catch share? A catch share is an exclusive guarantee that whoever holds the catch share has the exclusive right to harvest a certain percentage of the total allowable catch of a particular species of marine life. That’s a mouthful, and you read it correctly.

It does not grant the right to catch a certain number of fish each year. How many fish can be caught is a number that National Marine Fisheries Service already determines and has imposed on fishermen for years. So if catch shares is not about saving fish, since we already have that scientific process in place, you may be wondering just what the purpose is.

The catch share program is not about how many fish can be caught. Catch shares is only about who gets to catch fish. Catch shares can be bought, they can be sold, and they can be leased or traded.

So the logical question is what is the conservation advantage of catch shares? The answer is that there is no conservation advantage. Catch shares policy is about taking the right to fish away from the masses, from those individuals who want to become fishermen for a lifetime or for a day, and giving that right to harvest fish to a select few. Catch shares is designed to privatize the ocean. As a free American citizen, you might want to think about that one for awhile.

Catch shares were implemented in Area 2A this year. Area 2A is our halibut in California, Oregon, and Washington. It was first implemented on the commercials and is now being put into place for the recreational sector.

Catch shares is not a stock management issue. It is an ownership issue.

On Nov. 4, Eric Schwabb, assistant administrator for fisheries, released the formal NOAA announcement that catch shares are coming to the recreational sector.

If we want to see coastal heritage and traditions vanish, we should simply do nothing. If we believe that the right to fish should be the exclusive right of those who have the deepest pockets, we should simply do nothing. If we believe that reducing the ability of coastal citizens to generate income and pay more taxes is good for our state’s economy, we should simply do nothing.

On a personal note, I suspect -- perhaps hope is the better word – that, as the owner of a long standing and reasonably successful charter fishing operation, I will get enough catch shares to continue in business.

However, when I went to Vancouver to learn about catch shares, I heard incessantly about their great monetary value and that raised a question. So, I asked the man who developed the Canadian plan, “How could a young person ever become an owner/operator fisherman with this additional expense?” And he answered after a long pause, “We’re still working on that!”

There is something sadly, tragically wrong when a nation’s government deliberately creates a mechanism that denies the next generation its right to dream. I want no part of catch shares."

http://islandfreepress.org/2010Archives ... entalDefen seFundPlanToDestroyNorthCarolinasWorkingWatermen.h tml

Another Glouchester Times articlefficeffice" />
"The widespread ardor for catch shares at the two-hour hearing was in stark contrast to sentiment in the U.S. House last month, when reprsentatives, racing through its version of the continuing budget resolution, voted 259-159 to halt funding for NOAA's new catch share initiatives. Sen. Cantwell went so far as to help publicize the push back against the House vote, a respone organized by EDF and its allies and proxies.
In her five minutes with the microphone, she held up a copy of an ad with the message "Catch shares work" on Politico, the daily web report on politics, soon after the House vote last month.
"Can you commit to catch share funding?" she asked as she waved a copy of the ad, which was purchased by the Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Shareholders Alliance, a group which has benefited from catch shares and alliance with EDF.
EDF has transported members of the alliance to Washington to counter anti-catch share actions including the February 2010 mass protest at the side of the Capitol.
Dennis O'Hern, who organized an industry protest last month in St. Petersburg and sat in on the hearing, which he described it as largely a farce.
"One hundred and ten percent of our members oppose catch shares," he said in a telephone interview.
Panama City charter operator and industry leader Bob Zales, who helped organize the 2010 protest of about 5,000 fishermen and allies, recently described the Reef Fish Shareholders Alliance as "a mouthpiece" for EDF. "

Please sign this and flood the email boxes.

[Nelly]

It just never ends does it Ron??? Unbelievable greed by the commercial fishing industry along with misguided politicians and bureaucrats is a very dangerous combination for the sportfishing industry.

[Salmonhawk]

Done