Selling Bunker to China ????

[Terry B'ski]

LINDEN, N.J. - (AP) Thieves netted nearly $130,000 worth of bait fish when they stole a refrigerated container from a trucking company in north Jersey. The more than 63,000 pounds of menhaden were bound for China.

And we wonder why there aren't more stripers? What is wrong with this country? Can't we fix it?

[Onshore]

I they were legally caught; what is your problem as to where they are sold ?

The fishermen, the boat owner, a fuel dealer, an ice dealer, the whoesaler, the trucking company, the customs house broker and the steamship company are all earning part ot their livings from those fish. And how about the 63,000 Chinese families it fed. Isn't that the American way ? Or, did you want to buy them for your own bait?

[Terry B'ski]

It's the tragedy of the commons, playing out yet again. For the temporary benefit of a very few people, the rest of us suffer the despoiling of a common resource that we all inherited and are now letting be squandered. I would rather have the menhaden resource managed so that 80 jobs benefit, rather than 8. I would rather have the menhaden harvest be sustainable, so those jobs continue to sustain an American way. But an American way that's smarter, not dumber; one that makes us richer, not poorer. Menhaden are the most important fish on the American coast: http://www.thefishingline.com/history_of_bunker.htm

(sorry for the rant, maybe this is not the best forum...)

[phillyflyguy]

I wonder what they do with the Bunker in China? Eat them?

This is absolutely the right place to rant about it...

This story makes me think the fishery is being abused not managed. Does NJ manage menhaden at all?

[Fish On]

Terry

Great article, thanks for posting it. I usally don't read this forum (live in New England). I'm not sure if this article has been circulated before in other forums, if not, perhaps one of the moderators could make sure others have a chance to read it.

[Cheju]

If every person in China ate just one Bunker per year think of all the jobs it would create here. Ship building, net making and repairing, gasoline and deisel production, Sonar and Computer manufacturing plus all of the supplies and provisions the ships would need. Maratime acadamies would be churning out captains and mates and able bodied seamen would become a scarce commodity.

The only problem is how long would we be able to harvest a bilion plus bunker per year without changing the natural balance in the seas?

Cheju

[venture]

Right now, we import most of our manufactured product from China, or elsewhere in Asia. This includes all products from durables through apparel and High Tech. Our biggest export to Asia is entertainment (Hollywood).

Seems like this is a desperate attempt to balance the trade deficit. Hmmm.....How many bunkers would we have to export to make up for the trillion dollar trade deficit. It's either that or Bruce Willis gotta go into overdrive.

Howie

[Cheju]

If you figure a a buck a bunker and each bunker a pound, that would have our economy booming and our oceans devestated in no time.

Lets look to something else to relieve the trade defict.

Cheju

[Lov2Fish]

Good post Terry! I hate to se such a valuable resource get shipped out of the country too! More Bunker more fish!!!

[Capt. John]

Trust me it's not a sustainable resource being harvested in mass quanities...
Example here in Maine: in the early 90's we had wall to wall bunker, we also had russian on board proccessing ships (for food) move into our harbor. The local comm. fisherman all started catching and directly selling bunker to the ships within 2-3 years the bunker where GONE --124-3, we did not see another adult bunker here in any quanity until the surge last year...and as soon as the bunker came back so did many out-of-state boats to catch them. We are in the process of putting regulations in place as we speak to stop the free-for-all harvest here in Maine.

[Terry B'ski]

It's a complicated subject; the responses are interesting. I keep thinking about two things that seem to be related when bunker are being killed -- the phrase "free-for-all" and the issue of creating jobs. When bunker are caught/killed/sold in unsustainable commercial quantities, they only seem "free" to the last enterprise that catches them. In actuality, once they are killed by a commercial enterprise, any future chain of additional commercial activity is irrevocably broken. If unsustainable bunker are caught/killed/sold to anybody (I wasn't trying to single out China), anything that didn't eat those missing bunker suffers as well as people whose jobs depend on them. If you're going to talk about creating jobs by removing bunker, you also have to think about the jobs destroyed when the bunker are removed. When you do the math, it seems more like robbery. There are stakeholders who probably don't even realize they are being robbed, taxpayers a hundred miles inland whose activities are regulated to keep a portion of their pollution from going into a river that feeds into an ocean. They don't "own" the bunker, but they have paid enough to deserve to have a return on their communal investment instead of having their capital skimmed off the top by unsustainable commercial enterprises (think pirates!).