Stewardship

Cartoon by Matt Wuerker 12/11/12 http://politi.co/TSu9iP

More B.S. out of Omega Protein

During lunch today, FLTA Senior Editor Terry Gibson weighed in against Omega Protein spokesman Ben Landry, on the Hearsay Radio Show, broadcast by WHRV Radio in Norfolk, VA. Panelists included Landry, Chris Moore of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Peter Baker of the Pew Environment Group, Rep. Wittman (R-VA) and Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission Chair Louis Daniel, who serves as director of North Carolina’s Division of Marine Fisheries.

Gibson called B.S. on Landry, pointing out that the most recent peer-reviewed stock assessment reflects what generations of anglers have witnessed. Menhaden have virtually disappeared from the edges of their range, especially in New England and off the southern states of Florida and Georgia. And Gibson made the case that it isn’t fair to risk thousands of responsible fishing and other tourism-related businesses on the Atlantic Seaboard.

Landry tried to judo-flip the argument for conservative management by pointing to “uncertainty” in the stock assessment as an excuse not to take action, even though the peer-reviewed stock assessment shows Atlantic menhaden are down to less than 10 percent of an un-fished level, and that overfishing has occurred in 32 of the last 54 years—due primarily to Omega’s intensive fishing practices. Landry said that they saw no need to support more than a 10-percent total reduction in harvest, since the stock had remained stable since the 1980s. The biologists on the call cut the knees out from under that argument by explaining that in fact menhaden populations began their steepest decline during those years.

Consider the source. Here’s a guy who represents a company that hires foreign fisheries biologists to bully American scientists and managers charged with assessing U.S. fish populations. Read the Public Trust Project report entitled “Scientists for Hire: What Industry’s Deep Pockets are doing to our Fisheries.”

Landry also re-introduced Omega workers facing layoffs, in a year when Omega earned tremendous profits, executives took home huge bonuses, and while Omega hire hundreds of foreign workers. Click here for the Public Trust Project’s latest investigation into their hiring practices, which reports that, “Records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that Omega Protein has employed hundreds of foreign laborers through H2B visas, a federal program that allows American companies to hire foreign nationals to fill temporary jobs.  In order to be awarded H2B visas, a company must prove that “there are not enough U.S. workers who are able, willing, qualified, and available to do temporary work.”

Stay tuned for news straight from the ASFMC meeting Friday in Baltimore.

--FLTA