Tuesday, January 17, 2012
F/V Richard & Arnold's Renewal
The cold slows everything down, but work is progressing and even with the freezing cold we are moving forward. While holding up the fort at home I've had time to read up on what's going on in the fisheries. Very interesting reports from www.savingseafood.org Two former directors of Sciences at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Canada, did a report on the seal population and the effects on codfish off the coast of Nova Scotia. The area studied has been closed to commercial fishing for decades due to the decimation brought about by large factory trawlers in the 1980's. At the time the fish were being caught by men, seal numbers were 3,000 along the coast. Now after trying to rebuild the stocks by limiting fishing, seals have grown to 300,000, doubling every 7 years. The cod stocks are worse now than when the Canadian Gov. banned fishing in that area. What this says to me is that men and seals are both at fault, but that one should not be given exclusivity over the other. In our small fishing town, back in the 1960's a man was rewarded for bringing in a seal. My grandmother wore a seal coat- I'll never forget how warm it was, especially now, while Dave is working outdoors in 0 degree weather in order to keep our fishing boat and business afloat. Doesn't it make you wonder?
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Heck I can remember when seeing a seal along the Cape was a relatively rare event, When I first brought Maggie to the Cape we would see the odd one, now they line up along the shore. Seems the on;y thing they have to worry about is the great whites that are now making the Cape their summer home!
ReplyDeleteMost of the fishermen on Newfoundland became seal hunters during the winter then the "environmentists" got involved to make seal hunting an "evil" activity and BOOM up went the seal count!