blitzhunter
05-04-2010, 07:07 PM
Fishermen plan civil disobedience
By Beth Young
Some day late this June, 20 people from the East End who aren’t fishermen plan to go down to the sea, catch three porgies apiece, and bring them to Stuart’s Seafood Market in Amagansett.
There, in a large parking lot beside the market’s packing house, they will place those porgies in 20 shipping containers filled with ice, and mark them to be sent to the Fulton Fish Market.
If all goes as planned, the media and other notable community members will be on hand to watch as the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, whose law enforcement branch will also be invited, tickets or arrests the participants.
The act is meant to draw attention to restrictions that are squeezing the life out of fishermen at a time when many men who work at sea say that they are seeing record numbers of fish in the water.
The East Hampton Baymen’s Association decided last week to go ahead with the protest, just months after two of its members, Paul and Daniel Lester, were arrested and charged by the DEC with several felony counts of taking either too many porgies and flounder or taking those fish out of season.
Attorney Daniel Rodgers, who is representing both men, plans to bring their case to trial, and a court date for both was adjourned at the request of the DEC last Thursday morning. They are due in court again on June 24.
“We are seeking to find 20 people in the community,” said Baymen’s Association member Arnold Leo, who is helping to organize the protest.
Mr. Leo said that many commercial fishermen have already been cited with violations, and will risk losing their licenses and impoverishing their families if they participate in the protest.
“We have already found some, including two ministers whose congregations have a lot of baymen, people who do not have commercial food fish licenses,” he said. “They will put three porgies into a shipping carton with ice, staple a shipping label onto that carton and the moment they do that, they will have violated the law.”
Mr. Leo said that the DEC has informed him that the maximum fine for sending three porgies to market without a food fish license would be $325.
The Baymen’s Association is no stranger to civil disobedience. In the 1990s, the group staged a protest by using haul seine nets on a beach in Amagansett, in which several people, including singer Billy Joel, were arrested.
“The purpose here is to make a public protest so that we draw the public’s attention to the fact that there are very serious problems for commercial fishermen. They’re being put out of work and fish markets are filled with fish from foreign fleets at time when we need the economic boost here.”
“We want to be careful not to say we support poaching as a way of living,” he added. “What we’re trying to do is draw attention to the fact that the situation is becoming so desperate and difficult that some fishermen get so frustrated that they step over the legal limit.”
Mr. Leo said that the protest is also meant to support a bill recently introduced in the U.S. Congress by Senator Chuck Schumer and U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, which would allow for more flexibility in the 1976 Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.
Mr. Leo and many other fishermen point to the fact that, because of extreme restrictions over the past decade, porgies have recovered to twice their sustainable levels and black sea bass populations are totally rebuilt. Even summer flounder is at 75 percent of its rebuilt level and populations are expanding, he said.
“These very restrictive management measures have been producing some results. Fishermen have been living with these fully restrictive measures, looking forward to the day when they can say the stocks have been rebuilt,” he said. “There’s widespread conception in the public that the fishermen want to go out and rape the sea. They don’t. They depend on the fish stocks for a living. But commercial and recreational fishermen both feel that fisheries are being managed in a far too restrictive manner.”
By Beth Young
Some day late this June, 20 people from the East End who aren’t fishermen plan to go down to the sea, catch three porgies apiece, and bring them to Stuart’s Seafood Market in Amagansett.
There, in a large parking lot beside the market’s packing house, they will place those porgies in 20 shipping containers filled with ice, and mark them to be sent to the Fulton Fish Market.
If all goes as planned, the media and other notable community members will be on hand to watch as the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, whose law enforcement branch will also be invited, tickets or arrests the participants.
The act is meant to draw attention to restrictions that are squeezing the life out of fishermen at a time when many men who work at sea say that they are seeing record numbers of fish in the water.
The East Hampton Baymen’s Association decided last week to go ahead with the protest, just months after two of its members, Paul and Daniel Lester, were arrested and charged by the DEC with several felony counts of taking either too many porgies and flounder or taking those fish out of season.
Attorney Daniel Rodgers, who is representing both men, plans to bring their case to trial, and a court date for both was adjourned at the request of the DEC last Thursday morning. They are due in court again on June 24.
“We are seeking to find 20 people in the community,” said Baymen’s Association member Arnold Leo, who is helping to organize the protest.
Mr. Leo said that many commercial fishermen have already been cited with violations, and will risk losing their licenses and impoverishing their families if they participate in the protest.
“We have already found some, including two ministers whose congregations have a lot of baymen, people who do not have commercial food fish licenses,” he said. “They will put three porgies into a shipping carton with ice, staple a shipping label onto that carton and the moment they do that, they will have violated the law.”
Mr. Leo said that the DEC has informed him that the maximum fine for sending three porgies to market without a food fish license would be $325.
The Baymen’s Association is no stranger to civil disobedience. In the 1990s, the group staged a protest by using haul seine nets on a beach in Amagansett, in which several people, including singer Billy Joel, were arrested.
“The purpose here is to make a public protest so that we draw the public’s attention to the fact that there are very serious problems for commercial fishermen. They’re being put out of work and fish markets are filled with fish from foreign fleets at time when we need the economic boost here.”
“We want to be careful not to say we support poaching as a way of living,” he added. “What we’re trying to do is draw attention to the fact that the situation is becoming so desperate and difficult that some fishermen get so frustrated that they step over the legal limit.”
Mr. Leo said that the protest is also meant to support a bill recently introduced in the U.S. Congress by Senator Chuck Schumer and U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, which would allow for more flexibility in the 1976 Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.
Mr. Leo and many other fishermen point to the fact that, because of extreme restrictions over the past decade, porgies have recovered to twice their sustainable levels and black sea bass populations are totally rebuilt. Even summer flounder is at 75 percent of its rebuilt level and populations are expanding, he said.
“These very restrictive management measures have been producing some results. Fishermen have been living with these fully restrictive measures, looking forward to the day when they can say the stocks have been rebuilt,” he said. “There’s widespread conception in the public that the fishermen want to go out and rape the sea. They don’t. They depend on the fish stocks for a living. But commercial and recreational fishermen both feel that fisheries are being managed in a far too restrictive manner.”