for the people, by the people
Welcome
Our fishing industry in Rhode Island is historic and our resources are bountiful, but due to government mismanagement, regulations prevent us from catching and landing an abundant variety of seafood. Seafood, which in turn, you the consumer must purchase imported versus local and incur outrageous expense and unregulated quality controlled product.
Our mission is to educate the consumer and make a stand against these regulations that will ultimately destroy the fishing industry and our access to fresh local caught seafood!
TRUTH: Fishing Crisis or Government Mismanagement?
In 1976 the United States Congress passed the Magnuson-Stevens Act to provide for the conservation
and management of the American Fisheries.
But that's not quite how it turned out.
The true story of the American Fisherman. Fighting against the sea, the weather, tough economic times and most importantly the United States Government in an attempt to protect his family, his home, his heritage and his dignity.
Did you know ...
- The U.S. fishing trade deficit with Canada alone is over 1.5 billion dollars.
- The country's staggering deficit is a result of unnecessarily importing over 80% of all seafood consumed annually.
- The government mismanagement restricted fishermen to catch a mere 7% of the Total Allowable Catch (TAC) of haddock, while the same time we imported over $20 million of this fish.
- The National Marine Fisheries Service states that 180,000 metric tons of fish are able to be harvested every year, but because of regulations, fishermen were only allowed to harvest 78,000 metric tons.
- On average, commercial fishing vessels are forced to return hundreds of thousands of pounds of fish (which will not survive) to the ocean in the name of conservation.
- Rhode Island waters are currently filled with the largest biomass of fluke in history, but fishermen are restricted to the smallest coast wide quota in history.
- There are more individuals regulating fishermen that there are commercial fishing vessels.
- Various senators have called for investigations of the National Marine Fisheries Service.
- Rhode Island commercial fishing vessels landed $100 million worth of fish last year alone, which ultimately generated $400 million to Rhode Island's economy.
