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Dear Governor Kitzhaber,
We ask you to protect a great American family tradition – recreational fishing. We are troubled by the extreme environmentalism reflected in such a recommendation that proposes to unnecessarily ban the public from enjoying our nation’s natural resources, most specifically our oceans and coasts.
There are 50 million American’s who fish, including nearly 700,000 in Oregon alone. As anglers and active conservationists, we vigorously support clean water and abundant, healthy fisheries. Further, we understand the need for and willingly abide by regulations and conservation measures to protect the health of our oceans and the future of our sport. Given our high level of commitment, we found it alarming to learn of the superfluous recommendation to ban recreational fishing along the Oregon coast.
Activist-led efforts to unnecessarily restrict recreational angling are without scientific merit. Anglers are proven conservationists and highly selective users of the resource. According to the latest government figures, recreational anglers land but two percent of all fish caught in our ocean. Yet despite instead of focusing efforts on those activities that need better management, activists continue to fixate on this single-minded crusade to ban the public from our oceans.
Closed areas and seasons are among the array of tools that should be used to manage our fish, but they need not be the first and only tool. Many species including white sea bass, redfish and striped bass have rebounded not because of drastic closures, but instead through the work of conservation-minded anglers.
Our ocean fish need better management, not a simplistic one-size fits all approach that ignores the drastic differences between an enjoyable afternoon fishing with the family and a large-scale commercial activity exploiting the ocean for profit.
Unfortunately, Oregon’s Ocean Policy Advisory Council appears to have made a recommendation to ban public access before presenting a shred of evidence showing anglers are causing harm. This is a classic case of putting the cart before the horse. Similar proposals to ban recreational access in California lack even the most basic ingredients of smart management: scientific justification, implementation guidelines, timetables or long-term conservation goals. They simply seek to lock down the ocean and throw away the key forever.
In response to this extreme environmentalism, the recreational angling and conservation community has offered up guiding principals for the use of marine protected areas. Codified in the Freedom To Fish Act (H.R. 3104, S. 1314), these common-sense guidelines reflect the ideals behind our nation's great terrestrial national parks, forests and wilderness areas that openly encourage ecologically sustainable recreational fishing. We urge you to adopt these guidelines at a state-level.
Conservation rarely comes at the expense of public access and enjoyment. Proposals that exclude the public ignore realistic views of environmental management. Indeed, anglers who actively enjoy our coasts have long been the staunchest supporters for strong ocean management. We will continue to support conservation measures such as catch limits, size limits and, when scientifically appropriate, limited closures. However, we will adamantly oppose efforts, such as extreme wilderness area proposals, that simply go too far. As a group who regularly spends time on the water and takes part in a great American pastime, we urge you to opt for common-sense conservation that supports responsible recreational fishing access. |
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A group of active conservationists including sport fishing and boating groups and the tackle industry have united to support common-sense solutions to protect fish and the sport of fishing. These groups include the American Sportfishing Association, B.A.S.S., Coastal Conservation Association, National Marine Manufacturers Association and the International Game Fish Association.
Learn more by visiting us at www.FreedomToFish.org. |
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