This week, the L.A. Times ran an interesting profile of a sea urchin/sea cucumber fisherman from California. Though the author pushes us to feel sympathy for the aging diver and a declining fishery, any fisherman who was able to send his two sons to "13 years of prep school in Palos Verdes, and then sent them to two of the top liberal arts schools in the nation" cannot have been doing too badly. No, he doesn't have a 401(k) and he might continue to work his whole life, but isn't this simply the modern manifestation of the American Dream?
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I think that guy sounds cool.
Jennifer...I think the point was that for this fisherman, as with many others, his way of life is on the decline. I suppose one could argue that it was the same with small farmers just prior to WW2 and more recently with auto workers in Detroit. There's a lot of appeal in this description of commercial fishing--the close relationship with a world few experience, the independence and adventure--but it also seems pretty honest about the difficulties. (Financial too--b/c they've committed to paying for an excellent education for their sons does not make them extravagantly rich and it seems to have come at a real price.) Given our environment (economic, social as well as biophysical), I expect that commercial fishermen, like farmers, autoworkers and conservation biologists, are exploiting a niche with no evil intent. I would argue that conservation biology's best contribution here would be to reform that commercial fishing niche into something that may have a little better longevity than those most exploit currently. Sure, fisheries (and the men and women that make them) bear some responsibility for our current state of affairs, but they aren't solely to blame. I think some sympathy is in order, and, personally, I'd have to admit to some nostalgia too. Cheers, Pete