Expelling the Gospel According to Paul

Drivel from Paul from 06/12/2006

...This week Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn, a Member of Parliament from Newfoundland ,(that would be Newfoundland and Labrador) allocated 2300 tons of cod to commercial fishermen and authorized a food fishery of 2,500 pounds. Newfoundland residents will be allowed to catch just over a ton in total of cod without a license and are limited to 5 fish per person per day or 15 fish per boat per day. Of course, there is no way of controlling this take and it is ludicrous to believe that thousands of Newfoundlanders catching five fish a day will result in less than 2500 pounds of fish being taken.

...Of course, after this summer there will be 2400 tons fewer fish than now thanks to this token fishery opening that Loyola Hearn is offering to appease his constituents in Newfoundland.

Here is the point that Paul is avoiding or ignorant of: The fine folks of Nova Scotia have always been allowed to cod fish, no licenses and no season. The trial opening of the cod fishery in Newfoundland and Labrador was in response to what has been a great inequity in how the government of Canada treats the residents of Nova Scotia vs it’s sister province of Newfoundland and Labrador. A true conservationist would make that point that the Nova Scotian fishery must be restricted to match the same restrictions put on Newfoundland and Labrador fisherman. That is not Paul’s point though is it? He has again missed the boat on this one. Paul’s would not take a strong stance against Nova Scotia. He has said “I have relatives in every province of Canada except Newfoundland and for that I am grateful.”

“The fish are not being given time to recover,” said Captain Paul Watson. “It will take generations to undo the damage done by the greed of the commercial fishing industry and the incompetence of the Canadian government. It may not be possible to bring the cod back but these regular openings to make fishermen happy are not benefiting the species. We need to leave the cod alone for the next century and allow them to recover from the ruthless pogrom we have inflicted on them for the past few centuries.”

Paul has said in the previous news item that the fish are “not expected to recover” which is it, will they not recover or are they not being given time to recover – and here I thought he was omnipotent.

Back in 1993, the Sea Shepherd ship Cleveland Amory intervened against overfishing by foreign draggers on the Nose and the Tail of the Grand Banks. Although the campaign resulted in losses of over $35 million to illegal Spanish and Cuban drag trawlers, Captain Paul Watson was arrested for mischief for chasing the draggers away from the Banks. He was acquitted of the charges after a long and expensive trial in Newfoundland in 1995.

A photo of the Cleveland Amory is below. Ask yourself this: why did Paul abandon this globally important species back in the 1990s? When the Cod is still now in such great danger of extermination why is he no longer championing their cause?

To answer this I’ll give you some context. This was the early days of the Captain and his fledgling Sea Shepherd Society. Faced being kicked from the comfortable nest of Greenpeace that he claims to have co-founded even though other reports say he was simply in the same place at the same time as the true founders of that environmental group.

In these early days of SSCS Paul, still sore from the boot print on his ass decided to form his own group. He stepped back for the first time since that whale looked him in the eye and said to himself. What marine species needs my attention? Obviously the plight of the Northern Cod was short-listed and for a very brief time became his primary attention.

Why then did he abandon the plight of the cod? The truth is that the Cleveland Amory setting out to fight for the cod fish was a great money pit. Paul knew where his bread and butter must come from. Here is what he said at the time “...the seal is very easy to exploit as an image... the baby seal with tears coming out of its eyes. Baby seals are always crying because the salt tears keep their eyes from freezing; they are beautiful and because of that, coupled with the horror of the sealer hitting them over the head with a club, it is an image which just goes right to the heart of animal lovers all over North America”. He restructured his organization around the most reliable paycheque that he knew. The Harp Seals off Newfoundland and Labrador’s front. By now of course white coats were no longer hunted and there numbers where great and showing no signs of threat to the population. Doesn’t matter – Paul knew he could spin the right tale to get the money flowing again. He has done very little to aid pelagic species since. Token gestures like dropping a dozen or so "net rippers" in recent years - nothing more.

Sea Shepherd has called for a one hundred year moratorium on the taking of cod in the North Atlantic.

“It they have any chance for recovery,” said Captain Watson, “it will take at least a century to accomplish it. These are long-lived fish and the fisheries have slaughtered 96% of them all and now are not allowing the survivors to reach sexual maturity before assaulting them again. These fish should be left in peace and all cod fishing abolished at least until 2106.”

This is more armchair biology by this so-called conservationist. There were discussions recently about whether or not the Northern Cod should be placed on the endangered species list. There are established protocols and procedures to protect species at risk. Paul’s 100 year proclamation makes a great sound bite but has no merits in science. It is not only arbitrary it is the standard type of ludicrous hyperbole that we have come to expect from Paul.

Some Spring Cleaning of Watson BS

Let me do a Paul Style rewrite of this because I really feel truth is not a luxury or a privilege but a necessity...

Sea Shepherd News
News Releases
05/24/2006

Canadian Seafood Boycott is Beginning to Really Hurt the Seal Killers

Canadian Seafood Boycott is a lie. Most of the restaurants on the list are Vegetarian, do not serve Canadian Seafood and/or are unaware they were on a list.

Ask yourself this? Why did the Costco Store in Newfoundland and Labrador submit to the pressures of a local boycott within two weeks when Paul’s boycott of Costco has been ineffective? Research this yourself, outside the dark box that is the Sea Shepherd Media Machine. Sea Shepherd has posted the photo of ONE man, protesting outside Costco headquarters. Another photo that showed no more than ten protestors was removed from the site. The belief that there is a movement affront that is supportive of Paul Watson is a farce, plain and simple. He has a small but well funded and connected group of highly public people.

It has been 15 years since excessive overfishing by Newfoundland destroyed the North Atlantic cod populations. Back then, the Newfoundland fishermen and the Canadian politicians swore they knew what they were doing and insisted the cod numbers were healthy right up until the day the entire fishery collapsed.

First of all a point of correction. Paul Watson being the Canadian son he claims to be should be aware the name of the province is Newfoundland and Labrador, although I’m sure Labrador is not disappointed that Paul isn’t aware of them. For those who call themselves an environmentalist or conservationist you will know that the demise of the Northern Cod is a complex ecological issue that Paul has chosen to grossly simplify to suite his own “newfie” hating agenda.

I’ll give a few variables for those who wish to investigate this on their own. 1. Federal allowance of fishing quotas for foreign vessels. Given as favours, or in trade for favours. 2. Poor fishing techniques primarily by larger vessels including foreign vessels, these include unsustainable harvesting methods like drift-netters and bottom trawlers. 3. Political pressure on Ottawa to sustain smaller Newfoundland and Labrador communities who rely largely on the fishery (this is the one point Paul is willing to make) 4. Federal Policy promotes waste and greed, “by-catch” has traditionally been discarded. Look up “underutilized species” 5. Global changes in ocean species due to human factors like pollution, global warming, shipping traffic. There is a recognizable change in the marine environment that is not related to Newfoundland and Labrador. Evidence is the decrease in size of the ocean giants like Sunfish. Look it up. 6. Unbalanced predatory species. Paul and his crew also like to say that Newfoundland and Labradorian’s like to blame seals for the destruction of the cod. The truth is the ecological imbalance due to the population rise of the seal and decline of pelagic species has to be a factor to consider in a true environmental analysis of the North Atlantic ecology.

They all acted shocked when the cod fishery died although conservationists had been warning them for years that collapse was inevitable.

It is a conservationist job to warn of disaster. Governments don’t listen to conservationists. People like Paul Watson use the moniker of "conservationist" and then make public statements like “[Newfoundland] is a place where priests rape orphans”. That sort of person cannot be taken seriously. What governments need to listen to are Scientists. DFO again is to blame using poor scientific knowledge and analysis and in some cases poor scientists.

The cod are not expected to recover.

Paul likes to state things as fact. People close to him have described him as having a "God-Complex". Here he has announced the future of a species to the world, but apparently he is the only one with this knowledge.

Currently, the same “experts” are insisting that the seals populations are healthy even as they slaughter over 325,000 each year in what is the largest mass slaughter of any marine mammal population anywhere in the world.

Paul likes to use a series of rhetorical statements repeatedly that in so doing the perception will be perceived as true. Once a source of information is heard a number of times, we have a tendency to perceive them as being true. Consider the effects of rumour and gossip, or urban legends. Paul is a master deceiver. In this case Paul spouts big numbers like “325 000 seals slaughtered”, the “largest slaughter of marine mammals in the world”. What the reader should understand is that the harp seal herd is a population like no other marine mammal in the world. Current estimates put it at over 6 000 000 animals. The quota represents about 5%.

Now, the latest fiasco is the mismanagement and greed of the crab fishery that has resulted in another crash and this financial blow coupled with the international boycott of all Canadian seafood products has just hit Newfoundland with the force of an economic sledge hammer.

This week about 700 seafood processing workers were laid off after Sea Treat Ltd. shut down plants in three rural Newfoundland communities and one in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

This is the latest is a recent string of plant closings.

Again Paul is simplifying a complex ecological issue to suite his agenda. The same complex set of variables that account for Northern Cod also factor true for Crab. Crab in particular was hit by the impact of transferring processing to China and other places where labour is undervalued. You will know the effect of this if you’ve ever worked near textile factories in the US and Canada. Seafood is no different. The Seafood boycott simply has not been a factor in declining Crab prices.

"We could be heading towards a crisis," Newfoundland Prime Minister Danny Williams said. "A lot of these things that are happening here are things that are completely out of our control."

It appears Danny Williams has just realized what many environmentalists have known for years – that Newfoundland is heading once again into another crisis.

Let me give some background here. Danny Williams is a self made millionairre, highly successful business man, lawyer and rhodes scholar. Paul Watson is a wanna be acedemic who calls himself conservationist or environmentalist because they hold no concrete definition of implication of any sort of higher education. Paul says “It appears Danny Williams has just realized...”. Does Paul honestly think that Danny Williams or any Newfoundland and Labradorian has suddenly awakened to a profound realization. Paul likes to spread the filth and hate that Newfoundland and Labradorians are stupid. Beware of his alternate agenda, he is wholly wrong on this one.

The union representing nearly 20,000 Newfoundlanders are worried. Plummeting shellfish and crab prices have been the major force behind the sagging state of the fisheries this season, said Earle McCurdy, president of the Fish, Food and Allied Workers Union.

The Sea Treat closings are part of a wider malaise plaguing the fisheries, said George Rose, professor and chairman of fisheries conservation with Memorial University's Marine Institute.

The Newfoundlanders as usual are blaming everyone but themselves. They blame the rising value of the Canadian dollar, competition for crab from the United States and China, higher fuel prices, and of course, they blame the seals, the whales, the seabirds, and the animal rights and conservation organizations.

Paul thinks Newfoundlanders and Labradorians blame everyone but themselves?! I suggest he spend more time listening and less time shitting from his mouth.

“The seafood boycott is not helping,” said one Newfoundland fisherman. “Our products are being given a bad name because of these stinking seal lovers,” he complained.

Paul likes to make stuff up as needed, the emphasis and tone sound nothing like that of a Newfoundland fisherman

The boycott is having an effect. Fishery Products International Ltd., considered the vanguard of the fishing business in Newfoundland and Labrador and crucial to the economic livelihood of the province's south coast, lost $10.5-million last year. Created by the federal and provincial governments from the bankrupt shells of previously collapsed firms, FPI has temporarily closed its Marystown operation, putting 650 employees out of work for the first five months of this year. The company also plans to permanently close its Fortune plant, eliminating 345 jobs, in July. Former employees in Harbour Breton haven't worked for more than two years, except for top-up projects to extend their employment insurance claims.

Here Paul takes some facts and heads it with a lie. Axe the first sentence here.

If Newfoundland is to recover they must learn to live in harmony with all the species that humans are independent with. A healthy population of seals is essential for a healthy fish population. That is an ecological fact.

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are profoundly aware of our place in the environment. This statement by Paul is akin to telling Gretsky how to skate.

Newfoundland is in economic dire straits because of gross incompetence, mismanagement, and greed in their fishing industries over the last century. Scape-goating the seals instead of curbing their greed has brought them to where they are today.

Again simplifying complex issues so Paul himself is capable of some amount of understanding.

“Perhaps it is time that Newfoundlanders look at taking a more ecologically-healthy approach to living off the ocean.” Said Captain Paul Watson. “Wiping out seals and seabirds, whales, and fish is not the smartest thing to do if you wish to survive and live by the sea.”

Paul hates Newfoundland and Labradorians. This is another example of wording he likes to use in reference to intelligence of Newfoundland and Labradorians. It is a good sound-bite but has no merit in truth.

The Canadian seafood boycott is growing and it will continue to grow until Canada abolishes the mass cruel slaughter of hundreds of thousands of seal pups every spring.

How can a false boycott grow? Why is Red Lobster still open? Why is Costco Still thriving? This is what any intelligent reader has to ask themselves.

The Canadian government refuses to acknowledge that the international Boycott of Canadian Seafood products is having an effect despite the fact that they are funding public relations campaigns to counter the impact of the boycott.

The only PR campaign I hear is the daily radio announcements by the HSUS asking people to contact DFO. Nothing from Paul Watson – he is jumping aboard a larger ship and claiming himself captain. In Newfoundland and Labrador he would be known as a “cracky” a small yappy dog. You might know it better as “little big man syndrome”

The Canadian government has for years unfortunately been unable to see the cause and effect of their economic woes until it is too late. Perhaps they will acknowledge the boycott when the final fish processing worker is laid off and sent home.
More likely, however, they will simply blame us stinking seal lovers.

What can I say to this? Maybe Paul needs a good shower...