Southern Offshore Fishing
            Association

The answer is, "yes, she is as serious as a heart attack -- and twice as dangerous."

Since being installed as head of NOAA, which is the government agency that is over the NMFS, which is the government agency that is on a course to destroy the American fishermen, anti-fishing scientist and Pew Fellow Jane Lubchenco has never passed up an opportunity to heap blame on fishermen for anything and everything that has happened, is happening, or -- more often -- she imagines has happened in the Oceans and Gulf of Mexico.

Her latest?  It wasn't the oil that was on their bodies that killed 600 more turtles in the Gulf of Mexico, it wasn't the millions of gallons of Corexit sprayed into the Gulf by BP that changed their environment and ultimately caused their deaths, it wasn't the changes to the environment and food chain caused by the largest oil spill in history that hurt these poor turtles.  No, it obviously probably must have possibly been the fishermen, maybe.  In a perfect example of govenmental -- and Pew spew -- doublespeak, carefully worded so that she has wiggle room if she is ever called to task for her reckless attempts to blame a large group of working Americans for the monsters under the bed in her world, she states that animal autopsies (necropsies) "on more than half of 600 carcasses point to the possibility that a majority may have drowned in fishing gear."  Say what? "the possibility that a majority may have"?  What does that even mean in real-speak?

She then points out that "shrimp and fish - not a natural part of turtle diets - were found in their digestive tracts." begging a couple more questions. 

• One:  how does she think this happened?  Were the turtles eating the shrimp and fish while drowning in shrimper's nets?
• Two:  If they don't eat shrimp and fish, why is it that they have severely restricted an entire fishery (the Gulf bottom longliners) based on the fact fantasy that too many turtles were being drowned after eating too many of the longliner's baits.  Baits that are almost exclusively, err, fish.  C'mon Jane, you can't have it both ways.

Nils Stolpe, of fishnet-usa.com has written a much more complete article about this issue, which I'm reprinting below and which he says will be available on his website in a printable .pdf format.  Until you can download it from there you can read it below, create a pdf, print it or email it to your friends and fellow fishermen.  Like much -- all? -- of his writing it is spot-on and worth a few minutes of your time to read and share with others.  Nils also keeps a blog here, which is well worth reading and can be accessed from the right column of this website along with the two SOFA blogs and one from National Fisherman.