| Issue #40, January 12, 2007 |
“I Swear It Was This Big...Back Then”
What North Forker’s Are Thinking About The 40 Year Fish Prediction
By Phyllis Lombardi
I’m worried about my brain. Yours too, if truth be told. Because I just read we’re running out of fish and I remember what my mother told me. “Fish,” she said as she presented a plate of pale flounder to her only daughter, “fish is brain food.” If flounder were not available, then mom ran at me with a tablespoon of cod liver oil. Mom must have been right, though. Look at me now.
But it’s the now that worries me. According to a study made public in a recent issue of Science magazine, we’ve got about 40 years before the commercial fishing industry collapses – sinks to the bottom of a dead sea, so to speak. Dan’s Papers was even more frightening. A week or so ago Dan wrote, “I’ve heard that by 2040 all the fish in the seas will have died.”
There are some credible reasons for this. Pollution. Over fishing. Climate change. Other causes are offered by scientists but those guys always baffle me and I don’t want to mislead you. All I know is my supply of tinned tuna is threatened.
There is one ray of hope. Scientists do know how to make corrections. They just need to act fast. So says a marine biologist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I’ll tell you his name. This fish expert’s name. It’s Boris Worm. Really.
Well, Nova Scotia is a pretty place but kinda chilly this time of year, so I decided to forego a visit with Mr. Worm and talk with fish experts closer to home – right here on the North Fork. After that, I’ll tell you about a plan I thought up. If it holds water, it just might save the fishing world. That’s using my brain!
Let me introduce you to John Fabian and John Prestia. They’re fishing buddies whose homes are side-by-side in Cutchogue but whose hearts are “gone fishing.” John F. compared fishing in Peconic Bay and off Plum and Gull islands before 1988 (weakfish, flounder, fluke, striped bass, kingfish, blowfish, eel) with fishing in 2006 (mostly porgies). Both men serve a mean fish dinner, John P. probably doing so more often. The 40-year prediction seemed a distinct possibility to them – sadly.
But things are not so bleak according to Charlie Manwaring, owner of Southold Fish Market. Charlie, busy in his store, spoke first of United States fishing regulations which, he said, while often annoying, are effective. He said New York has the toughest regulations – they’re different from New Jersey’s or Virginia’s, for example. He’d like to see more uniform laws, perhaps laws applicable to the entire eastern seaboard.
And this I thought was important. Charlie claims the farmed fish industry is growing so rapidly it should compensate for any decline global warming might cause in open-water fishing.
A bit cheered, I left Charlie and drove to Captain Marty’s Fishing Station in New Suffolk. Phil Loria is owner of the business, which has been in the Loria family for 36 years. Perhaps I imagined a bit of a catch in Phil’s voice when he said, “Thirty years ago I thought fishing could never end. Now it’s different.”
Phil’s friend, Frank Buonaiuto of Mattituck, has fished local waters for more than 30 years. He lamented what he sees when he fishes for tuna and shark off Montauk. Draggers from foreign nations fishing fewer than 100 miles from shore. Phil spoke of how the ocean bottom is disturbed by draggers and regretted the waste of so many fish. Not a pretty picture from these reel experts.
So I’ll tell you my plan. It would be one of the North Fork’s finest moments - beginning a high tide movement called “Swimming with the Fishes.” The aim would be to protect and educate the denizens of the deep. This program would be run by our federal government and we would wage it as we would wage any war. With men, money and the determination to stay the course.
First we’d get our leaders from retired U.S. Navy Seals. These folks would be stationed on both ocean coasts and along our riverbanks. They would train cadres of young men and women (NJROTC members, for example) to get into the water and swim with the fishes. Some swimmers would lead schools of fish away from fishing vessels. Other swimmers would administer medication to fish suffering the ill effects of pollution. Medicare Part F would pay for this. Finally, swimmers would encourage fish to reproduce more frequently. A kind of romance under the high seas.
I suspect you’ll think this will turn into just one more government fish story. But please give it your serious consideration. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
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