What kind of fools govern this country?

[Digby]

The Canadian goverment has been telling fisherman that we have a huge biomass of haddock on Georges Bank . Most fishermen includeing myself have been doubting the goverment was right about the haddock biomass but surely they must be some right .

The goverment has raised our haddock quotas about 5 times their normal amounts with plans of next year putting it to 10 times the normal amounts . There was even rumers that our goverment was going to let chinese trawlers come into our waters to help catch all these haddock .Fish plants have been plotting for months to be able to sell all this haddock that are to hit the market on june first .

I myself have been looking forward to getting a crack at these large haddock resources our goverment is telling us about . As in the areas im fishing now fish are getting so scarce we are lucky to pay our fuel cost any more.

To make a long Story short our goverment picked 6 of their rich liberal friend 's to let go to georges bank last week as they wanted to treat their buddys to a few loads of haddock before the prices crashed with the june first opening when the whole Canadian fleet hits Georges bank as well as the americans hit their side of georges . the price now for haddock is about 1.00 a lb -1.30 a lb out of the boat after june first prices was predicted to be .30 to .50 so it was a real treat for these crooked liberals to be aloud to go before the rest of the fleet . As it was predicted that 2-3 tows would bring in 70,000 to 100,000 lb of haddock . So these boats was suspecting 100,000 dollar stocks in less then a day's fishing .

They could not find no haddock! according to the goverment millions of lbs are there ready to be harvested ,like i say they even been considering getting the chinese to help us catch all these haddock . But 6 boats went there last week and could not find them! the highest boat had 15,000 lb and only 5000 of haddock aboard when landing and our goverment says there is millions and millions of lbs there ready for harvesting .

Millions of dollars have been paid to rich ITQ holders in advance for a chance to get at all these haddock . I know one fish buyer that paid 1,200,000 dollars up front to itq holders for these haddock . I imagine he may be setting somewhere crying at this time . One company alone had 8,000,000 of haddock to catch there .And they are not there as of last week !

What kind of Fools is running this country???

how hard a shape is our ocean in?

The beuracrates that set this quota will just lauph this off they didn't lose millions too itq holders.

[RB]

Responding to a challenge to invest differently, I recall doing a research back in 97 when the company I worked for was going to diversify its business into the aquaculture industry. We were interested in forecasting mostly salmon but did other fishes

And I remember some discussions with the agriculture ministry at that time with a fellow from the Agriculture Ministry that we estimated some serious shortages.

We ended up hauling fish from South America - Peru, and Chile, it was more lucrative than catching fishes in the Canadian waters to supply a 3 year demand

[Digby]

Alot of our fish now will be sold to chinese buyers that ship them froozen by container to china to process them ,then they send the finished products back to sell . Hard to beleave they save enough on labour cost to ship to china and back and still make a profit .

aquaculture if the truth be known is mostly a great disaster in Canada it would be hard to get the truth in Canada as its hid from the public . Millions of tax dollars have been invested in aquaculture . in new brunswick its big business . at first it looked like we struck gold many millionaires was made .

Then reality struck , diseases . More then the public will ever be told about .

I visited a salmon farmer in new brunswick a while back and stayed at his house . At the time they was burying salmon underground . He told me 70% or more of all salmon farms in new brunswick was full of diseased fish . Diseases was in my opinion spreading in wild populations .

Human beings that eat these sick diseased , antibiotic filled fish i think are eating poison foods . While in Florida i seen a front page article claiming a direct link from farm raised salmon to cancers . ITS really a man made disaster this aquaculture industry but our crooked lieing goverment hides it .

The state of maine has closed down alot of its salmon farms because of the disease . But in Canada its hidden as millions of tax dollars was thrown into this industry . A few quick millionairs walked away and the goverment will be left with the clean up responsibility some day soon.

I suspect Salmon farms kill more pollack then commercial fishing , as pollack start their lives in inland water ways , they find these farms a feed source and mostly get more then free food out of the deal they get free diseases to take back to their friends.

time will tell just how much damage salmon farms have really done , i think its also added to a future crash of herring resources(the oceans backbone) as herring was slaughtered by the boat loads to grind up as salmon feeds .

Our oceans could of supported us if mannaged rightously ,but now i fear we are headed to famine shortly from our oceans state .

Im now a trawler captain and i beleave trawling is too much tecnology it should never been allowed .

I beleave longlining in moderation could of went on for eternity if trawlers had been avoided .I only go trawling as you stand no chance of survival in a longliner competeing with trawlers.