The Internet rumor mill was working overtime this week, with stories, columns and tweets flying around that the Obama administration was going to ban recreational fishing in the Great Lakes.
It all began with a column on ESPN.com by Robert Montgomery that baldly stated: “The Obama administration has ended public input for a federal strategy that could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing some of the nation’s oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters.”
He cites “industry experts” — the industry being sport fishing — as warning that NOAA’s Ocean Policy Task Force is under the influence of environmental groups pushing to end sport fishing. The expert, a spokesman from fishing equipment manufacturer Shimano, said President Obama will issue an executive order for “marine spatial planning” which he believes will impact sport and recreational fishing, as well as commercial fishing, on inland lakes and rivers along with the coasts.
The leap from fact to supposition was so great that ESPN.com added an editor’s note to the column after receiving more than 400 comments to the column. Executive Editor Steve Bowman wrote“… this particular column was not properly balanced and failed to represent contrary points of view. We have reached out to people on every side of the issue and reported their points of view — if they chose to respond — throughout the series, but failed to do so in this specific column.”
Obama officials jumped into the mix Thursday with the head of NOAA announcing there are no plans to end fishing and the National Marine Fisheries Service chief stressed that the administration “is committed to adopting policies that will ensure that current and future generations have the opportunity to enjoy the great tradition of recreational fishing.”
“Both commercial and recreational fishing are vitally important to this nation,” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Jane Lubchenco told a House panel yesterday. “We are not proposing any blanket ban on recreational fishing. I would strongly oppose that, and it is not in the works.” http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/03/11/11greenwire-obama-admin-jumps-to-squelch-rumors-of-us-fish-65275.html
Other publications responded with a variety of articles. The Colorado Independent ran a satirical piece titled “Obama to ban sport fishing right after seizing all hand guns.”
Here is John Tomasic’s take on it: “No one is saying the alleged Obama “plot on fishing” was part of an RNC fundraising campaign, but the off-base rumor-bomb has certainly caught fire among the “visceral” small-donor crowd. Media Matters has a round up on how the rightwing mediasphere has run with an evidence-free story that the Obama Administration in league with shady anti-recreation environmental groups is planning to ban sport fishing across the country.”
The debate apparently came to a head Wednesday morning on Wisconsin Public Radio when a Natural Resources Defense Council spokesman was bombarded with concerns that Obama will end all fishing. NRDC blogger Josh Mogerman responded “Rather than being conned to fight this policy, recreational fishermen should be supporting it. After all, this is about encouraging the federal government to better coordinate their actions, and to work with the states and stakeholders, to clean our waters and ensure that our fisheries remain strong. Recreational fishing is an important part of the Great Lakes economy, contributing $1.5 billion to the economy in 2006. We need to ensure that our Great Lakes are healthy, so we can continue to enjoy fishing far into the future.”
Who is in the right? Find out for yourself. Read the actual report from the task force and its recommendations. And a lesson to all those concerned: go directly to the source!