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Unlike most of my generation, I do not use or follow social media. However, from what I understand about hashtags, I would say #ResearchBeforeFishing because my thoughts about the state of fisheries revolve more around what needs to be done to improve fishing and the health of the environment. This might seem like a paradox because a lot of research about fish and how fisheries affect them is gotten through fishing, but I think that this is detrimental to keeping fisheries healthy. When reading Billion Dollar Fish I was struck by just how much greed is in the fishing industry. The early pollock industry seemed to be a free-for-all where everyone was trying to grab as much as they could before people noticed and started to try to study and manage it. Even then everyone was falsifying numbers and attempting to fool or buy out the researchers on their boat. The fishermen and captains in the book seemed to be continuously starting a fishing company, making it profitable, and selling it before it went bankrupt. Captains were fishing in one spot and moving on to the next after they deplete everything in the first spot, without a care or even knowledge of what they just destroyed.
Fishermen not caring about the fish is such a foreign concept to me, and I felt revolted by the actions of the fishermen in Billion Dollar Fish. This is because I grew up around fishermen who were always complaining about Fish and Game, not because they are not allowed to catch enough fish, but because they did not think that there was enough escapement going past the weir. However, it seems like these kind of fishermen are in the minority.
Taking this class and reading Billion Dollar Fish has convinced me that research about fish and fisheries needs to happen if not before the fishery starts then at least at the beginning, and that the research should probably be less reliant on the fishermen.Isabella,
Well said…Your comments are wise beyond your years. You recognize and bring up the important point that throughout time man has been consumed by greed to deplete a resource and then move on to something else. I also like how you highlight that there is hope in those that recognize this trait and want to prevent it. This unpopular opinion is the solution to ensuring there are fishes for our future generations.
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