Deckboss has written a few times about The Boat Co. lawsuit, which challenges the revamped fishery observer program implemented in 2013.
This week a federal judge gave the plaintiff a partial victory, as specified in the conclusion of his order (page 48).
Here's a statement from Jim Balsiger, head of the National Marine Fisheries Service in Alaska:
"We are pleased with the court's decision to uphold the North Pacific Groundfish and Halibut Observer Program — a decision which ensures this critical fishery management program will stay in place. While the judge upheld the program, he has asked the agency to prepare a supplemental Environmental Assessment to look at program costs and coverage levels. Going forward, we will work with the court on a schedule for development of that supplemental EA."
The Boat Co. and Earthjustice issued this press release.
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8 comments:
The halibut observer program is pure horse crap and should be fought to the bitter end.
The IPHC chartered boats to test fish for years, they have tons of data from that.
Cameras are no better , what ever happened to innocent until proven guilty? They won't take the word of a fisherman?
The % of halibut / black cod taken by whales isn't even taken into consideration.
We don't need to create and fund any more worthless bureaucratic jobs. are the charter boats getting observers ?
Charter boats in 2C and 3A are routinely sampled by ADF&G for all bottomfish. Have been for years.
There should be cameras recording everything hauled aboard a bottom fishing commercial fishing vessel.
They should get rid of observers on small vessels and just go with cameras. No room for extra bodies on those small boats. Keep observers on some boats for biological sampling and use the cameras to speciate the catches of other bottom fishing boats.
Working on a trawler that has had observers from the day the program was implemented, there are many pros and cons. The pro side is the monitoring of potential discard. Before the program, the high rate of discard from overfishing was huge. This has curtailed that. The data the observers gather is not that conclusive, but fed into the NMFS overall data base, and a small percentage of the info gathered is actually of merit. The real con side is the percentage of good observers versus bad observers. For the many years we have had observers on our boat, only a small percentage could do their job, integrate, and become part of the boat's infrastructure. The majority are just ballast. They do very little in the way of the job they were hired to do. I would rather they implement a camera program. I just want to know what it is going to cost me. What is paid out to an observer can be costly over time. For the most part, I believe in the observer program, as it keeps fishermen honest. Instead of full-time coverage, maybe the fleets could do with part-time coverage. But general feeling is the camera coverage would just as easily suffice.
Charter boats have observers onboard every day, with cameras, iPhones, and GoPro's.
We have a fulltime observer coverage on a factory longliner, and full camera coverage. I can tell you the the cameras are fair, and that the large percentage of observers are not. They are lazy, intrusive, and there is no over-sight whatsoever. The observers answer to no one. Cameras are better.
I am a biologist and, although I would enjoy working as an observer, I prefer the cameras. We need to preserve the fisheries. But the cameras are cheaper and therefore better for the fishing community. And No I do not trust hundreds of people, even commercial fishermen who are the hardest working people I know, to not include tens of liars, or at least rationalizers.
CP trawlers have 200% coverage. This is about small boats, the small boat culture of cheating that is both institutional and tolerated. Oceana knows the distinction but is being dishonest, again, by lumping all trawlers together on this issue and failing to make the distinction. Their frequent dishonesty causes people to tune them out, which is a bad thing, because sometimes they actually have helpful things to say.
Since the charter boats followed the mass of cruise ships and multi-billion dollar industrial tourism, it's hard for my family to put halibut in our freezer. Still, the charter boats want more with no limits, no accountability, and no observers. We have no trawlers within hundreds of miles, but we still can't put halibut in our freezers in SE. Time to shut the charters down and save more fish for Alaskans. Let's hope that our politicians don't screw us over on this one. We should all be watching them closely as elections season gears up.
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