[va-richmond-general] Re: Horseshoe Crab Bill

  Sorry, I can't help myself....

  The fisherman are losing their jobs?  Boo-hoo.  Too bad.  The natural 
environment is NOT an inexhaustable resource and the fisherman have played a 
HUGE role in damaging and polluting the shores and oceans.  Now they want to 
cry they can't make a living.  Whine, whine.

  Cry me a river and sail down it in the Ship of Woe.

  Just like those people in the Industrial Revolution who couldn't or wouldn't 
adapt to the use of newly-invented machines and were forced to develop other 
skills and find new occupations, so will these fisherman will have to as well 
in this instance.  I have absolutely zero sympathy for them or their families, 
as they have been profiting on the rapid demise of marine life for centuries, 
and the well happens to be nearly empty just about now.  Too bad for them.  
Adapt and find a new occupation or go hungry.  

  As someone who has had to, by necessity, change occupations more than once in 
life, I maintain that if I can do this, funding it all on my own with no one's 
help (and now saddled with lots of student loans to pay back), why should they 
be any different?  Answer:  they shouldn't.  It's time they put up and shut up 
and started looking for other work instead of whining about how they "can't 
make a living anymore" and offering excuses as to why they have the right to 
push any species toward extinction.  Their unwillingness to avail themselves of 
new skills and a new occupation is an unacceptable excuse to fish other species 
to extinction, and now I really, really wish I could have gone that night to 
tell them this personally!

  <end rant>
  Irene from Southside

  ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Heron329@xxxxxxx 
    To: va-richmond-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
    Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2006 6:25 AM
    Subject: [va-richmond-general] Re: Horseshoe Crab Bill


    The reason for the bill's failure was that the watermen that use the 
horseshoe crabs as bait for conch and eels were there in force, and their 
spokesmen made excellent presentations.  It came down, in the end, to a choice 
between the watermen's jobs and the horseshoe crabs and the Red Knot.  The 
crabs and the birds lost to the jobs.

    There was testimony given about research being done to find another source 
of bait for the traps.  Nothing seems to work as well as the horseshoe crabs, 
and the best bait is from the females with eggs.  When the crabs are all gone, 
I suppose they will turn to something else then.  

    Horseshoe crabs take 8 to 10 years to become sexually mature, so even if 
the harvesting of them was stopped immediately, recovery would take years.  The 
really sad thing is that other birds, sea turtles, and some species of fish 
also eat the fat rich eggs.  The Red Knot is just the most visible victim of 
the Horseshoe crab's overharvesting.  The true impact has yet to emerge.

    Margaret O'Bryan

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