Letters To The Editor

Let's Stick to the Facts and Work Together

From Terry Pratt, President of the Albemarle Fishermen's Assn.

In a recent begging letter (Jan. 13, 2001) to friends of CCA-NC, Austin Ragsdale, Exec. Director, made some statements that are very misleading.

She said: "Our fisheries are teetering on the edge of disaster. A true statement, but, be mindful of the difference between fisheries and fish.
Fisheries—the actions of humans utilizing marine resources.

Fish—that group of creatures that make up marine resources.

Why is this difference important? 

Because sustaining and enhancing marine resources is not possible by regulating the amount of effort to take and effort to take, in and of itself.

The first and foremost issue to address in the process to sustain and enhance marine resources is to ensure that the habitat that generates and maintains our marine resources is of sufficient quality and quantity. Habitat is being altered sometimes drastically, every day. Yet the focus of some user groups is not on habitat problems, but rather on who gets which fish and how many they can have.

Commercial and recreational people must join in a concerted effort to assure that developmental policy and procedure does not have negative effects on our marine resources. Habitat is at a critical level. There must be a conscious move to cause development to conform to rules and regulation that prevents habitat degradation. These rules and regulations must be enforced unilaterally from the main portion of a major water body to the headwaters hundreds of miles away. It is imperative that this be done now. To be good stewards we must adopt management strategies that provide for the well being of the resource first, then for the effort to take at a viable rate.

The finger pointing and accusations of recreational against commercial, commercial against recreational, as to who took what and how much was taken or where and when it was taken, serves no useful purpose. Truth is not a requirement in most of these allegations. We must rely on factual information.

She said: "Destructive gear in our inland waters is increasing daily and juvenile fish are being slaughtered."

Fact is, gear in inland waters is decreasing. Inland waters are those managed by N.W.R.C. The sounds and lower points of the rivers of N.C. are commercial waters managed by N.D. D.M.F. The waters between commercial and inland are joint waters and are managed by both N.C.W.R.C. and N.C. D.M.F.

Fact is, commercial gear is decreasing in joint waters.

Fact is, even though some juvenile fish are killed in normal, lawful, commercial fishing practices, there is no biological indication that it has a detrimental effect on the status of any particular fish population as a whole.

She said: "They call it 'by-catch,' I call it 'by-kill.'"

Fact is, whether you call it by-catch, by-kill or fruit loops, what it is is a waste of the resource. Whether it killed by net or hook is irrelevant, it's still a waste. A dead fish is a dead fish; to throw it back does not benefit the resource. Rules should be formulated based on common sense and real world conditions that allow viable fishing practices to occur without causing waste of the resource.

She said: "Our opponents are willing to fight every conservation measure. They will concede nothing that could one day benefit future generations of N.C. Sportfishermen."

Fact is, commercial fishermen (and recreational fishermen) must, by design, be advocates of conservation. However, conservation measures cannot be defined simply as numbers of fish. Conservation is and should be generically applied to all facets of marine resource management. In fact, we should move from conservation of marine resources to generations of marine resources.

Ragsdale's case in point, the saltwater fishing license, will not of itself cause any increase in fish stocks to be guaranteed. If the intent of the license is to acquire more data, this could be accomplished much more efficiently by placing a number of interns in fish biology in the field to document real world status of the marine resource in real time.
She said: "I'm writing you today to ask you to help CCA-NC today, help us better educate the fishing public, the non-fishing public and the legislators.

Fact is, this really needs to be done but education must be with factual information. Not half-truths and misrepresentation.

Fact is, the future depends directly on you and what you do. As a citizen it is your personal responsibility to become involved in the well being of generations yet to be born. That they will have an environment that is not only capable of sustaining life, including both fish and man, but is, as well, a pleasure to live in.

Go get involved but as Joe Friday on the TV show "Dragnet" used to say, "just the facts, stick to the facts."

She said: "Your CCA-NC led the campaign against flounder gill nets in the Pamlico Sound. As of October 2000, stored-down gillnets are no longer allowed in the fall. These nets not only had the 'normal-by catch' they also killed hundreds of endangered sea turtles."

Fact is, this statement is simply NOT TRUE. Remember what Joe Friday said, "Stick to the facts."

Sincerely,

Terry Pratt
Albemarle Fisheries Assn. President