Spearfishing - are we under threat?

Good on you Artiz for apologizing, this is to appreciate, even if it would have been so much better not to write that in the first place.

But listen you all please to this little idea of mine:
Couldn't we just quit FOREVER to use words like "kill" and "murder" related to spearfishing.

Not that it my country we are smarter than you Brits (definitely we are not: italians can behave as dumb as sh!t more often than you think) but down here we never use such words as "kill" for catching fish. We use verbs such as to fish (pescare), to harvest (prelevare) to catch (prendere), to spear (infiocinare) but we run as hell away off the idea of spreading the word we enjoy "killing" and "murdering" fish. Choice of words can make the difference for the perception of our sport.

Off Topic

'I could 'harvest' a nice pie chips and gravy with a pint of cider on a chilly saturday eve like this ' ............just doesn't quite have the same ring to it

spag this is for you! ;-) [ame="http://www.flickr.com/photos/wobblything/7026207917/"]Pie, chips, mushy peas and gravy | Flickr - Photo Sharing![/ame]

Sorry! Back on Topic

Yeti said:

Off Topic

'I could 'harvest' a nice pie chips and gravy with a pint of cider on a chilly saturday eve like this ' ............just doesn't quite have the same ring to it

spag this is for you! ;-) Pie, chips, mushy peas and gravy | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Sorry! Back on Topic

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thanks! but in my country it is not legal to say "gravy" related to spearfishing.

Re: British Spearfishing Association Announcements

On the topic of Marine Protected Areas, and the related risk that spearfishing might be totally prohibited in those places, take care guys that the competitions issue has little or no influence on what will be decided, as far as I can see.

Based on the experience in my country, I guess there will be a board with numerous subjects who will gather contributions for each, and then decide how to regulate the said MPA's in the UK. Right?

Well, these counterparts involved in the decision process will make no difference between recreational and competitive spearfishing.

1) All the wildlife associations and animal rights activists will make no difference. They do not condone the killing of animals, not one single animal, for no purpose and by no means, be it sustainable or not, be it for sport or for food.
They will use their political and communicative influence, and push to ensure that no animal will be legally killed in the MPA's anymore. That's what wildlife and animal rights associations are for, and that's their present trend: no kill, veganism, animals have a right to live. Shall they make any difference btween competitive or recreational spearfishing? No. This is one big NO.

2) Commercial fisheries are obviously in competition (no pun intended) with recreational fishing, and are themselves in danger of limitations of their activity in MPA's. They realize that if a Marine area is PROTECTED, at least some kind of fishing activity will have to suffer some form of limitation. They will obviously push to aim those limitations at recreational fishing, be it spearing or rod and line.

3) other commercial features like scuba diving schools and diveboat captains: they are craving to get rid of spearfishers, so that the "Marine sanctuary" will be their own exclusive diving ground. And they probably hate recreational spearfishing more than competitions. Because comps are rare and scheduled events, while recreational spearos can pop off from nowhere any day, and disturb their activities. They will push to get rid of it, no matter competitive or not.

4) Political authorities and institutional conservation boards at the end of the day will seek for political consensus, trying to gain the favour of the most numerous groups. Spearfishers, competitive or not, are the smallest and less organized group. Guess whose arse are they going to kick?

In conclusion, I don't see any benefit from bashing comps so hard. More useful to stay on topic and see how to manage the MPA issue. Just some thoughts. Not a revelated truth...

spaghetti said:

thanks! but in my country it is not legal to say "gravy" related to spearfishing.

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pmsl! no doubt in time the EU'll have us culinary dropouts up north legally obliged to call it 'salsa?' or ban it altogether as unidentifiable! (I assure you some chippys up here are trying there hardest at primordial soup!) ;-)

sorry off topic again!:naughty

There was a Eurocrat talking about the future plans for total European lunacy and some soups were being looked at for specific health and safety legislation, particularly Scotch Broth as he said it generally was cooked for a longer period.
So - soup may be banned before spearfishing I fear ?

Re: British Spearfishing Association Announcements

During talks between the Sussex Spearfishing Club and the Sussex fisheries 5 years ago a list of all the fish caught by the club for the last year was put on the table. The fisheries officer said, lets start with Mackerel how many did you catch this season, the answer came back from our lads one. Do you mean one ton, said the fisheries officer, no came the reply, one fish amongst 15 of us.

Re: British Spearfishing Association Announcements

eric aqua said:

During talks between the Sussex Spearfishing Club and the Sussex fisheries 5 years ago a list of all the fish caught by the club for the last year was put on the table. The fisheries officer said, lets start with Mackerel how many did you catch this season, the answer came back from our lads one. Do you mean one ton, said the fisheries officer, no came the reply, one fish amongst 15 of us.

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Awesome

eric aqua said:

During talks between the Sussex Spearfishing Club and the Sussex fisheries 5 years ago a list of all the fish caught by the club for the last year was put on the table. The fisheries officer said, lets start with Mackerel how many did you catch this season, the answer came back from our lads one. Do you mean one ton, said the fisheries officer, no came the reply, one fish amongst 15 of us.

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Hahaha! Puts it into perspective eh?

Re: British Spearfishing Association Announcements

Yeti said:

Hahaha! Puts it into perspective eh?

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If we add up ALL the fish that ALL the spear fishing lads get in ONE YEAR it would be LESS than one small fishing trawler in ONE DAY !......... .Never mind the dead by catch and sea bed destruction involved .PERSPECTIVE.......So putting that in mind think I will contact the BSA to join.great thread.

Re: British Spearfishing Association Announcements

A friendly advice from one spearo who has been through this.

You need to get organized and organized quickly. Unite yourself and all consumptives and stick together to the bitter end. That is your most critical survival skill in this process. Ignore the temptation to split off and go it alone.

Spearos are a small group. On your own, even if you are 100% united, you have little chance. Bring all commercial and recreational consumptives into your coalition. By being organized and knowledgeable, you will gain credibility and can take a leadership position in the consumptive coalition to make sure spearos have a seat at the table throughout the process and that each negotiated agreement has spearos interest represented.

Unfortunately, it's going to be an adversarial process. That's how things are set up in these processes, at least in the CA situation. Excessive closures will be proposed and pushed, and unless you push back vociferously in unity with all other consumptives, you will be steam-rolled.

The money is not on your side, and public sentiment is not in your favor (since spearos are too few and what we do make the bambi-loving crowd squirm) but they can't shut out all commercial and recreational fishing consumptives. The public is not there yet. That's your opening. Then you need to educate everyone how selective and that spearos are exceptionally low impact and good stewards when it comes to the use of the resources (remember the leadership position? It helps when all consumptives look to you to speak for all--and you must be sincere in speaking up for all consumptives but it doesn't hurt that you also speak up for spearos now and then).

Get in early on the science discussion and formulation of "science" criteria for closures. Much of it is BS but it doesn't matter because that's the "grading" system that will be used as a weapon against all consumptives later in the process. Once these "science" criteria are in place, and if they are biased against consumptives, you are mostly screwed.

The other side will try to bias this grading system so that later in the process, they will argue that all they are doing is objectively applying "science". Ensuring in the early phase that these closure criteria accurately reflect spearos impact (or nonimpact) will be a delicate dance, as you are trying to unite all consumptives but also carving out exceptions for spearos at the same time.

When they say that species X is completely gone and needs protection by closing a gazillion miles of coastline, you need to question the study if that doesn't reflect your experience. When they say that the closure needs to be this big, ask why. If they say area Y is important reef habitat or has certain bottom structure, ask yourself why. Especially if that doesn't reflect your experience. You dive it and know it more than anyone. Chances are because reef habitat is going to be theorized to be important for species Z, and if species Z is something they said needs special protection (and nobody questions it), that area is going to be closed. It's a 3-dimensional chess game and you need to manage it intelligently.

But most importantly, quit your beotching. All of you. There are too few of you. Now is not the time to be divisive. Every spearos needs to get involved, and get with all consumptives/boaters. Realize that despite rhetorics, the enviro NGOs get graded on how much they can "save" the environment and their next year funding from their sponsors depends on how big of an area they can close to consumptives. So they will, if given a chance, try to close everything so they can claim credit. That's just how things work--money drives it like in everything else.

Google the history of the MLPA in California and spearos' role in keeping spearing waters open. Many threads on it over multiple years. We fought a good fight. Some say we did good. Some say we didn't matter. Many agree that if we didn't fight, spearos would have been screwed over much worse. We gained leadership and notoriety and grudging admiration from our opponents in that fight. I only know that if we didn't speak up, we would be ashamed to have to explain to future generations of spearos why we didn't participate and help preserve the lifestyle (and it is a lifestyle to some of us in CA, more so than just a sport). So we did.

Good luck and unity to all of you. zenspearo.

Re: British Spearfishing Association Announcements

Finally, at least in the CA situation, MPAs are going to be up for review and possible expansion in the future. The establishment of these MPAs is only the first step to further closures. If that's the case with you guys, you need to get organized for the long haul. All the things I mentioned about unity and staying knowledgeable/credible remain true.

Re: British Spearfishing Association Announcements

zenspearo said:

Finally, at least in the CA situation, MPAs are going to be up for review and possible expansion in the future. The establishment of these MPAs is only the first step to further closures. If that's the case with you guys, you need to get organized for the long haul. All the things I mentioned about unity and staying knowledgeable/credible remain true.

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Big thanks for the advice and info zenspearo... we clearly need it.
Regarding time frame, did they set the MPA's up first as non-intrusive and then later 'no-take' as part of the management, as in just introduce no-take policies when they wanted to... or did they originally come straight in as 'no-take'. I suppose what I'm asking is how long do you think we have before our situation becomes critical?

Latest MCZ/MPA map for Finding Sanctuary

...Sorry another important question to ask is do you think that the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) [ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Life_Protection_Act[/ame] in California will become a standard template for other countries to use?

Regards & Respect

Re: British Spearfishing Association Announcements

artiz said:

Fair do's Dafydd apologies... however the governing body you mention has no representation at the Welsh MCZ project which means nor do you. Basically we have no say or stakeholder status in the future of Marine Protected Areas in Wales and shouting 'not fair' when vast areas of the Welsh coast become no-take in the next few years will be too late... I'm 'banging on' because we need to act now so that we don't become the next banned Fox Hunters of the Ocean ... and in particular Wales where most of my family come from?

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Can we not ask(demand) for representation?
Contact | WCMP

Re: British Spearfishing Association Announcements

After a bit more thought today I realised that you are absolutely right Daffyd my warning is now lost... so one last ‘Hurrah!’

Problem 1- Marine Protection Areas are here to stay and will increase… their final purpose – ‘no-take’… what else would they be created for and backed up by one of the largest and most ambitious pieces of legislation passed by Parliament for more than a 100 years? When they become 'no-take' is incidental.
Solution 1 – Immediately prepare and mobilise appropriate unified and coherent representation at the official stakeholder level on a national scale which will give all spearfishing interests a voice and a presence, whilst being kept up to date on new developments at the earliest possible opportunity.
Problem 2 – A national spearfishing association which is currently unable to provide a unified, coherent representation for the interests of all spearfishers in Britain and worse still is prevented from achieving this recent aim by a few self-serving individuals.
Solution 2 – Immediately create a BSA which is fit-for-purpose by sweeping away individual interests placing the future of spearfishing itself as top of the agenda creating a unified, coherent representation for all spearfishers in Britain.
When achieved every single individual British spearfisher joins the BSA. Now place 'appropriate' representatives in all stakeholder positions within each MPA initiative/process including Scotland, Wales, Finding Sanctuary (SW England), Irish Sea Conservation Zones (NW England), Net Gain (NE England) and Balanced Seas (SE England)… apologies not sure about Channel Islands or NI?

Power to British spearfishing!

Over and Out!

just for clarity, please be aware that i have moved a number of posts from another thread to this thread. they have been automatically inserted in chronological order.