Thank you, DDX. Where are all the clamoring conservationists when you need them? They should be out demonstrating to save endangered occupations, not just endangered species. It's fishermen who are important, not fish.
Hmm, maybe we could re-train the trawler crews to make synthetic fish fingers for Birdseye to sell in the supermarkets.
As an avid fishing enthusiast, I pay for fishing licenses and am subject to legal limitations of size and quantity. My sportfishing cohorts and I often encounter commercial fisherman/oystermen/crabbers with no regard for not only legal fishing restrictions, but the rights of non-commercial sport fisherman like us. They hold the opinion that the sea owes them a living, and nothing should stand between them and filling their pots and their profit margins - we are in THEIR way. Thus, I make no apologies for the shotgun I keep on my boat. Conservation to many of them is merely is a word for tree-huggers, sportfishers, and political platforms.
Sorry, my bias is showing.
What industrial (over)fishing kills/wastes in "by-catch" (unintended species caught in gill nets) alone could repopulate the earth, not to mention the destruction they wreak on reefs and ecosystems. I recognize commercial fishing as a dangerous and noble profession to be sure, but likely the single most culpable source of species extinction on our planet. One hopes it doesn't take dead oceans to convince the commercial fishing industry to safeguard its own future.
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