Agenda Item I.4.c Supplemental Public Comment 5 (Electronic Only) November November 15, 2014

Transcription

1 November 15, 2014 Agenda Item I.4.c Supplemental Public Comment 5 (Electronic Only) November 2014 Ms. Dorothy M. Lowman, Chair Pacific Fishery Management Council 7700 NE Ambassador Place, Suite 101 Portland, Oregon RE: Agenda Item I.4 Drift Gillnet Hard Caps and Other Priorities for Dear Chair Lowman and members of the Council, My name is Jonathan Gonzalez and I am a graphic designer from Santa Barbara, California. I also write a blog over at EatUSseafood.com. This is now the 4 th PFMC meeting I ve been to and before I get into my suggestions for the Council, I want to tell you a bit about my journey and how I ended up here today because I think it is important for everyone to understand where my motivation comes from. (Slide 2) My entire life changed in April 2007 while I was walking my dogs along the beach and I almost stepped on an elephant seal that was half buried in the sand. After watching a volunteer from the Santa Barbara Marine Mammal Center come and rescue it, I began volunteering at the Center the very next week and soon became their Assistant Director from I also worked for the Marine Mammal Consulting Group as a marine mammal observer on offshore cable-laying projects and counted pinnipeds before, during and after launches all along the coast of Vandenberg Air Force Base. Over the years I ve personally rescued over 1,000 marine mammals by myself. Malnutrition, domoic acid poisoning, burst abscesses, shark bites, fishing entanglements, you name it I ve seen it and a whole lot of it. All of a sudden I became very interested in ocean conservation issues and gillnets became an instant enemy of mine mainly because all I knew of gillnets were the injuries they can cause. I used to believe all gillnet fisheries should be shut down, period. Also, sharks have always been my favorite kind of animal so I was not happy when I also learned the California drift gillnet fishery lands sharks in my hometown and sells the meat to local restaurants. (Slide 3) In 2009 I designed a website called SharkFreeSB.com that was aimed at getting all shark meat and shark fin soup off of local menus. My website quickly caught the attention of the Santa Barbara Sustainable Seafood Program who s objective is to get local restaurants to adhere to the MBA s Seafood Watch Program by not serving any seafood listed under their red avoid list. At this time, all shark meat was red-listed and I was enlisted as their shark expert who had to break the news to chefs that they had to either remove shark from their menu or they would no longer be part of our Sustainable Seafood Program. But after a very pointed question from one chef, I realized some seafood choices were much more complicated than I thought. The chef asked me, So you say I can t serve this shark because it s not sustainable, but you say it s OK to serve this halibut that was caught it the same net as the shark? I don t get it. I didn t get it either. I don t remember what I told the chef after that, but I said enough for him to remove local thresher shark from his menu. What I do remember is walking away feeling very dirty. For the first time I asked myself, What the heck am I doing? How did I get here? Am I really an expert? Am I really doing the right thing? This gut check marked another life-changing moment for me.

2 Agenda Item I.4.c Supplemental Public Comment November 2014 (Slide 4) Then Hawaii passed a bill to ban the sale, possession and distribution of shark fins, so my shark friends invited me to a meeting in Long Beach along with Senator Clayton Hee from Hawaii with the objective of enacting similar legislation in California. California Assembly Bill 376 was born that day and my responsibility was to increase support of the bill from local fisherman and reduce any opposition. The problem with this is even though I had done some research about California s shark fisheries at this point; I still hadn t spoken with an actual shark fisherman. But that was about to change, fast. (Slide 5) In November 2010 I was contacted by a fishermen who has been active in the DGN fishery for over 20 years after he saw my website. We spent almost two hours on the phone talking about everything from shark finning to IUU fishing. He answered questions of mine that helped to fill in a lot of the blanks that had kept me from understanding our DGN fishery, but much more importantly, he introduced me to the science behind it all. After our conversation I decided to pull the plug on SharkFreeSB.com for good. For the very first time I was starting to realize and respect just how complicated fisheries really are. Finally. Soon after this I learned about a campaign that was responsible for removing locally caught shark meat from the shelves of 41 stores in California. The NGO responsible for this campaign was the same NGO that invited me to speak about my SharkFreeSB campaign about a year earlier, so although all of my shark friends thought of this boycott as a victory for sharks, I thought of it as a big mistake that I was partly responsible for. Thankfully in April 2011, NMFS organized an information-sharing workshop about the CA DGN fishery that was held at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. The success of this workshop led to additional workshops in May 2011 in San Diego. The information that was shared in these workshops was instrumental in the Seafood Watch programs decision to change the ranking of common thresher and shortfin mako sharks caught in California and Hawaii from avoid to a good alternative ranking just months after the workshops. Ever since I realized that U.S fisheries management is arguably the best in the world, I decided to support U.S. fisheries rather than attacking them and it s the best campaign I ve ever been a part of. Unlike fishermen and NGOs, I have nothing to gain or lose financially from conservation campaigns. Instead of money, my motivation comes from a genuine will to stand up and fight for what I believe is good for our oceans and for our great country, and also to try to prevent potential do-gooders from wasting time and making the same mistakes I ve made in the past by not doing my homework. I ve been referred to as a rare bird by some people in this room before because of all the time I spend promoting and defending U.S fisheries. But if a rare bird is someone who respects the fact that fisheries are complicated and realizes how important it is to research all sides of any particular issue before taking sides or taking action, well then I really wish more shark (and ocean) conservationists would be rare birds like me, too. (Slide 6) And now I d like to focus all of your attention to this slide please. Thank you for your attention and consideration. Jonathan Gonzalez

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