Hi Les,
I’m glad and interested to get responses from a Texan (or anyone) on the decline of centuries-old fisheries.
You refer to Meera Subramanian
I’m always fascinated by the disparagement of reporting with an “agenda”. All of us have an agenda, some more hidden or hidden-in-plain-view than others. An agenda could be: I show you my framework plainly. Or I adhere to “objective” journalism which can include a “ both sides” format in which I cherrypick experts and their quotes and hope to lull my readers into believing there is no spin to my article because I’ve quoted “both sides” (and there’s only two sides?). Or I have an agenda which says in effect “I don’t want to think about it” or “I might have an opinion but I don’t like confrontations”...but that is an agenda too.
David Kirsh, LPC, RN
Sent from my iPhone
> On Dec 29, 2018, at 11:02 AM, Leslie Crnkovic <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Interesting article, but here is my take....
> Having recently sat in separate lectures on the topic by: The Galveston Bay
> Foundation, and TAMU Harte Research Inst. (local experts), plus my own
> historic knowledge having lived here through it, vs. the writing of a
> foreign activist with an agenda. The Fisheries history in Texas is much
> more complicated.
>
> Keeping mind Texas bays only have muck and some sand as substrate, and
> oyster reefs require hard substrate, the primary enemies of a healthy oyster
> industry in Texas are as follows: Repeated freshwater inundation at the
> wrong times, silting, sustained hard-freezes, over harvesting, and a lack of
> reef restoration. Reef restoration efforts have only started in the last
> few years. Oyster harvesting is regulated (in part) by the the Texas
> Dept. of Health, who determines where it is safe to harvest and produces the
> annual safe-harvest maps, e.g. no near-shore or shallow collecting.
>
> Some mischaracterizations in the article: "U.S. Immigration and Customs
> Enforcement didn't exist". False! It's just a new name from the DHS
> reorganization post 911. "Enforcement didn't exist"... Immigration was not
> as big of an issue 35~50 years ago, e.g. - a steady trickle which was
> economically healthy, so it was much more lax, but I still saw plenty of
> Immigration raids in the 80s.
>
> "recent Vietnamese immigrants", recent? That was primarily in the late
> 1970's. There was a literal war in the Texas-Louisiana fishing industry
> over this. Politics aside, the problems it created were displacement of
> existing fishermen in the industry, then large scale unlawful harvesting
> practices, [the gov. funded them up into this industry without fully
> educating them on regulations and sustainable practices, or they choose to
> ignore them] in an already stressed industry due to fuel cost and a weak
> economy; Thus undermining the entire NW Gulf fishing industry.
>
> Entire oyster reefs were harvested - wiped out, and overfishing in all other
> fisheries as well. With a whole extended immigrant family to work the boat
> and process the catch, they were energetically trying to survive, so the
> old-timers could not compete. In these hungry new immigrants did near-shore
> collecting in mass also. My favorite oyster-reef in Galveston Bay was
> picked-clean and has never recovered. Most other Molluscs in this area were
> also harvested clean.
>
> These practices caused price drops in an already stressed industry, forcing
> bankruptcy for a lot of multi-generation fisher families. Long term is
> created shortages. It took a many years for the industry to reach
> equilibrium again.
>
> Closing: I avoid farm raised seafood such as shrimp and tilapia.
> Why? Typical Farm Configuration: Pigs top floor, Chickens 2nd floor,
> Seafood bottom floor, ...and they only fed the pigs.
> Shrimp farm-raised in Texas is an exception to these practices.
>
> Les
>
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