Fishosophy: Overfished or Depleted?

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

(William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene II)

Contrary to what might have been true when Shakespeare had Juliet speak those words in the 1590s, how things are called is far from meaningless today. This is particularly so due to the increasingly pervasive and influential social media driven by sound bite journalism, text messages maxing out at 255 characters and Tweets at 140. When so much of contemporary communication and contemporary thought is dependent on so few words, those words, their exact meaning and their precise use have become critically important.
This is a photo of the totoaba or totuava (Totoaba macdonaldi) is a marine fish of the drum family (Sciaenidae) that is indigenous to the northern half of the Gulf of California
Thus it was with great relief that I saw that one of the amendments to the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson Act) offered by House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings deals with one of the most prejudicial examples of misnaming that has Continue reading