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Management of Fisheries
by Cathy Benediktsson

 

April 11, 2004
Sunday


I lived in AK for 17 years, and recently moved to California Bay Area. There is a commercial fishery for herring here (many Alaskan boats can be seen). I thought California would be different, that the Fish and Game folks here were somehow more environmentally sound in their management of the herring.

Alas, it is no different here than in Ketchikan and Juneau. The San Francisco Bay used to have a thriving COD fishery. None now exists. The Bay used to have a SHRIMP fishery. None now exists. The Monterey Bay used to have a TUNA fishery. None now. It is the same old story. This year for the first time the herring were so low in "biomass" that the fishery was closed early.

I have heard the COD fishery in the Grand Banks still hasn't come back, and that has been 60 years or more. Some say they fished the older ones and the small fry don't know they need to migrate to out there, so they stay in shore. Whatever the details, it is a deplorable situation. I think Iceland does a better job, perhaps the best in the world at managing their fishery, as that's all they have, and if it goes, so goes the country. More at stake.

Cathy Benediktsson
Tiburon, CA - USA

 

 

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