It shouldn’t be the Wild West out there on the high seas, but as one sign in the flotilla said, “Fishing families are working families.” That is a message Obama and his underlings should remember.
President Barack Obama has left Martha’s Vineyard but we hope he has taken more than the memories of golf outings and fried seafood with him. He was too far from Vineyard Haven harbor to see the flotilla of fishing boats there in a high-seas protest on Thursday but they should have gotten his attention.
Their message? That the region’s fishing industry is struggling under the weight of too-strict government management policies, and that his top fisheries regulator is out to kill the commercial fleet. A new catch share system has set limits too low, the fishermen argue, and this system that is designed to protect weaker groundfish stocks is keeping them from fishing for more abundant ones.
Now, it’s hardly a new complaint. Fishermen have been protesting government policies as long as there have been government policies, and there is of course a need for strong fisheries management in this region.
Read the complete story from The Boston Herald.