SO Annyoing!!! Over fishing?

As "the Ocean State," Rhode Island has a vast fishing community. There has been a lot in the papers recently about how the areas are being overfished. State and federal agencies want to lower the limits to give the lobsters and other fish time to regenerate. Fishermen, of course, need to provide for their families. Lowering the limits would put some out of work, while pushing prices higher.

So today I go to market, and they have cooked lobsters on special, a GREAT, UNHEARD of in YEARS price. So I bought 2, we shall enjoy them at lunch.

The reason? Due to the threat of Hurricane Earl, folks didn't buy lobsters for the long weekend the way they usually do. They went for canned meats, and deli meats, easy things as we well and truly expected to lose power (at the least!) for a day or so. Then when Earl stayed out at sea, people had all this other food in stock already and had to use it up.

My store alone, had over $3,000 of lobsters die in the freezer! :eek: Had to be thrown out. They cooked up what they had left, before those died too.

Makes me sad in SO many ways.

Those poor lobsters lost their life for nothing!
Those lobstermen did all that hard work, in seas getting rougher and rougher as Earl approached, (perhaps risking their lives in the process) for nothing! (Yes, they did get paid.)

And if it happened at this one store (part of a large multi state chain), how much was "lost" at other stores and other chains?

I wonder if any one tracks THIS when they are trying to set the limits for over fishing?

The overfishing of certain species leads to more lobsters. Cod, haddock, pollock and other bottom-feeding fish will eat baby lobsters. The fewer of these fish that exist, the more lobsters grow up to be legal size for the catch.

There needs to be a balance of species for the oceans to be healthy, and I hadn't heard anyone complain of too few lobsters, or lobsters being overfished at all recently, for just that reason. The huge commercial trawlers did lots of overfishing of some areas of New England for years - not the humble fishermen you see in Galilee and similar small ports. I still think of drag-netters as pure evil, and always will.

LOL, Karen, how do you KNOW all this stuff?!!

Dad grew up going to Vinyl Haven and helping out on lobster boats some summers, and still goes deep sea fishing whenever he can. I grew up going deep sea fishing once a summer or so, freshwater fishing more often, and Dad chats with the boat crew whenever he goes out. This kind of knowledge is just part of the atmosphere, asking how I know all this is like asking how I learned to talk - it's just part of growing up in my family.

Cool!