Fish and fishing - what the popular media miss

Domestic fisheries aren't on the verge of collapse. The U.S. commercial fishing industry has been landing about the same tonnage and the about same species mix for well over 50 years. Federally managed fisheries must be sustainable. U.S. commercial fishermen are among the most heavily regulated fishermen in the world. These are all documented facts, and they fly directly in the face of the "charitable" foundation funded professional crepe hangers who have built a multi-million dollar industry that is dependent on convincing you otherwise.

If you've gotten to this page, you are interested in fish, in fishing and in seafood. That being the case, like the rest of us, you've been assaulted over at least the last decade with a barrage of media pronouncements that the Armeggdon of the oceans is at hand. It's likely that you take these with a grain of salt. If you don't, you should.

While our oceans are certainly facing problems, those problems are not - as the ocean crisis industry would have us believe - primarily caused by fishing. In fact, the crisis industry's slavish devotion to demonizing fishing is responsible for the public's turning a blind eye to the real threats: the negative impacts of uncontrolled offshore energy development, the mass movement of our population to the coasts, the loss of critical coastal habitat, and the continuing and increasing release into our estuaries of an ever-growing spectrum of household pollutants. But who's looking? A well-coordinated, multi-million dollar "research" and public relations campaign blaming it all on fishing has effectively diverted the public's attention since the Exxon Valdez disaster over two decades ago.

Does overfishing happen? Not in U.S. fisheries. It's against the law. Can the uncontrolled use of fishing gear negatively impact vulnerable areas of ocean bottom? Sometimes, but mechanisms are now in place to identify and protect critical areas (note here that fishing impacts can be readily controlled but most "upstream effects" from rampant coastal development continue virtually unabated).

Below are links to various pages on the web where ocean issues are put into a more realistic perspective. Please invest a bit of time in visiting them and in considering the information they present. The health of the oceans depends on well-informed political decisions supported by a well-informed electorate. You're not going to be well-informed without knowing what's going on behind and beyond the headlines.

Thank you,

Nils E. Stolpe

p.s. Please visit the websites of our sponsors, which are listed to the left. Their generous support allows us to continue to present "the rest of the story" about fish and fishing, and no matter what part of the commercial fishing industry they are in, they are and will continue to be among the leaders.

FishNet USA - Why do we import so much of our seafood? Why is it becoming so difficult to find fresh, locally caught seafood (and when it is available why is it so expensive)? Why are so many commercial fishing and fishing dependent businesses struggling to remain viable? How true are the claims of environmental extremists that fishing is the worst thing to ever happen to our oceans? These and similar questions are the Raison d'être for FishNet USA.
FishTruth - Details on how hundreds of millions of dollars from a handful of mega-foundations have been spent on destroying the traditional commercial fisheries in the U.S.
Featured Article - Blue Water Fishermen's Association - Raising the conservation bar for almost a quarter of a century.
Fishing NJ Directory - Over 300 web pages focusing on commercial fishing.
Garden State Seafood Association - The website of New Jersey's commercial fishing industry
NOAA FishWatch - As consumers become more interested in sustainability it's important that they get unbiased information to inform their purchasing decisions. FishWatch, by the federal agency that monitors fish stocks and is required by law to manage those stocks sustainably is the best place to get that information.