We told you so...as reported here,
"Dateline: Monday, October 12, 2009"
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
"So now the argument is arising (Bob Krueger on KMXT) that the pictures posted on this site and other places are not identified because they are not really of tanners scooped up by a Kodiak trawler, but of an ADF&G survey vessel's deck shot. Not! The reason is to protect the informants, the photographers, from reparations, i.e., REVENGE. Besides it would be best if the draggers policed their own and exposed these ugly guys for the rogues that they are...enemies of the people and all that. Too much to expect?
I asked somebody why the landlord of the vessel(s) in question don't get rid of the dirty skipper, and the answer came back...'They make him too much money.' So if there is a GOOD, that's it. This rogue makes his handler too much money. The BAD is this vessel is operated without any conscience at all for the health of the ocean in general, health of the resource in particular, and the future of everyone of us who depends on the bounty of Kodiak's ocean resources to provide us with the life that we all love. The UGLY is the barrage of lies and deceptions which have become second nature to some people in order to protect their incomes while eroding our precious resources. UGLY is the fact that they do not appear to recognize their own lies. UGLY is the totes of halibut ping pong paddles I saw at the cannery; at the codends of spilled yelloweyes; the waste of the incredible numbers of king salmon. UGLY too is the foot dragging of our managers and protection people who, I have learned, know perfectly well what is going on and turn away from it. 'No hard evidence.' 'Unsubstantiated rumor.' Et cetera.
Could the stories we hear be only about one or two of these draggers? Selling cod bycatch to jig boats? Sixteen hours to clean up a haul of tanners in the Sand Box? Dumping a codend of small halibut in Marmot this summer?
Dumping a codend and deck load of flats in front of APS this month? Where the hell is enforcement? Where the hell are the 'good guy' draggers who could pressure for this guy to STOP? Hmmm...they must be dirty too...the only possible conclusion.
I am not convinced draggers can fish clean. But I do know that I won't ever be convinced unless they stop swimming in the same UGLY school as the dirty ones."
Dateline: Today
Jeffrey Eugene Scott, of Kodiak, recently convicted of threatening a fisheries observer, is the same skipper who pled guilty to dumping seventy-five tons of flatfish into the Kodiak Harbor, as reported in the paragraph above. Misdemeanors? How about the hillbilly heroin, the cocaine, the weed smoked openly on deck in plain view of everyone at the cannery? Enforcement didn't drug test? Why not? His out of control, out of his mind behavior wasn't cause? Look at his
record. Anyway, point is, the rumors are turning out to be reality (Is that news?). The drag fleet is not lilly white (Is that news?). They protect each other's backs regardless of the facts, and apparently prefer to be hung together rather than come clean.
- Thank you to enforcement for this conviction.
- Thank you to the courageous observer (good observers are out there and scare the hell out of these pirates).
- But No thanks to the justice system who puts this criminal right back into the fleet.
- And No thanks to the trawler owner who ignores criminal behavior in order to make a profit. (Why not turn Scott in for that sale of cod bycatch to the jigger, or the Tanner crab deckload? Because he has secrets on you!)
Seventy five tons of flatfish wasted? A drop in the bucket for what our trawlers waste every year. And misdemeanors for that, if convicted, then a slap on the wrist 'and go back jack and do it again.'
Remember: MSC certifies flatfish as sustainable, too!
Keep yer flippers wet.
