AJOC EDITORIAL: NMFS Alaska puts trawlers ahead of conservation

Good read:

 http://www.alaskajournal.com/Alaska-Journal-of-Commerce/June-Issue-3-2013/AJOC-EDITORIAL-NMFS-Alaska-puts-trawlers-ahead-of-conservation/

"McCarty didn’t lobby the council at the Kodiak meeting in June 2012, but her client John Whiddon of Pacific Seafoods did. Whiddon submitted a letter to the council on behalf of Kodiak processors asking for either no cuts or a smaller cut in halibut bycatch.

"Whiddon, at the time, was also putting his name forward for appointment to the International Pacific Halibut Commission on which Balsiger sits as the federal designee to the six-member U.S.-Canadian body.

"It might sound bizarre to think that someone against cutting halibut bycatch would think it even possible to be appointed to the IPHC.

"Despite mountains of evidence that halibut bycatch negatively impacts the species, or the decline in tanner crab populations around Kodiak or chinook salmon around Alaska, NMFS Alaska consistently sides with the trawl fleet while it is standing by junk science shutting down fisheries in the Aleutians."

NMFS=No More Fish, Sorry

Keep yer flippers wet.