Illegal Dorado in your Restaurant

[Lew Riffle]

This is a well done short documentary about the illegal (but allowed) take of commercial dorado on the mainland side of the Sea of Cortez that has been establishing itself the past few summers. It is one thing for a local pangero to take and sell dorado locally but this model is based on the same as the drug trade using the shrimp boat fleet. These guys long line out of smaller panga and then offload into the shrimp boats that go and off load on the mainland side into a trucking pipeline into the U.S..
The sustainability of this commercial fishery will be a periodic decline of over fishing then a recovery to make it happen then a recovery. The sport fishing industry will fail which will provide a more consistent industry for Mexico...but who wants to put up with a bunch of drunk Gringos!
Anyhow...take a look...you might want to think a second about ordering Dorado or Mahi when you go out to a restaurant...you might even want to query and inform the management of what is going on.
The world does not move on idealism..it moves on economic encentive. This told to me by one of the richest men in the world...a Mexican businessman
Lew Riffle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZstAPZqDYmQ&feature=player_embedded

[David Lee]

Welcome to the board , Lew .... great to see you here !

D.~

[Mark Kranhold]

](*,)Very sad, thanks for sharing. It really is like banging your head against a brick wall when it comes to mexico and the issues the U.S. has to deal with.

[Darian]

Been trying to ignore this video.... I'm all for conservation of fisheries in the Sea of Cortez but the video refers to Mahi taken in the gulf being sold in U.S. restaurants and lays the blame on Mexican fisherman. It's a very narrow and biased focus. Has anyone raised a similar complaint about commercial fishing for Ahi or Hamachi (Yellowtail) or Manta Rays down there???? Mexican fisherman should be granted some understanding when they see and complain about rich NorteAmericano fisherman trying to tell them what they can or cannot catch in their own country's waters. After all, these guys work long hours and every day during season and aren't getting rich.

Of course, all of us who fish down there would like to maintain the fishery for everyone (read us). Mexican commercials fishing out of Pangas aren't really as great a problem as U.S. commercial fisherman like the American captain caught at anchor in Magdelena Bay with 15 tons of illegally caught Dorado in the hold (as by-catch) a couple of years ago. I'm sure there're many more undetected violations by U.S. commercials, as well.

When Dorado are taken outside Mexican territorial waters, they're being caught legally and I'm sure that some portion of Mahi sold in U.S. restaurants are legally caught by both Central American and U.S. commercial fisherman but, to tell you the truth, I can't tell which are legal and which are not.

So, lets face it, the demand for sea food is growing by country's on every continent and it's not going to slow down any time soon. IMO, the real issue here (aside from corruption) is how to maintain a healthy commercial and recreational fishery while not depleting the remaining fish stocks of all types....

[Lew Riffle]

Darian I agree with what you are saying here. Please read my post a little harder. Ignoring when you know better is arrogance. Ignorance is at the heart of the problem here. The Mexican fishermen are victims not from gringos wanting better fisheries in "their waters" but from folks in the U.S. wanting a cheap fish dinner and the elite rich greed bastard that will sell fish like drugs. A single panga served by a mother ship can take tons of dorado daily while long lining. We don't need to provide a pipeline for this kind of fishery to happen. We don't need another grey market like guns, drugs, and even cheap labor from Mexico.
It is like the late Donald Creasy titled his book about the war on organized crime in the 60's..."Theft of a Nation"...nothing new...apathy and ignorance provide an open door to greed and crime. You can not rely on assumption and you must attack other's assumptions as well...so respectively I wonder about your assumption that ignoring is any sort of action other than despair which is an evil in it's own right. In the end let's not assume that you are ignoring because you did indeed respond. Yes admittedly there some assumptions in this video that need to be attacked...for one I bet I can jump in the water at Gordo Banks this summer and find some dorado doing just what Jerry M. videoed in '06. A little dramatic and desperate.
I'm all for a solution that would allow some sort commercial take in mexico that would provide for mexican use....they don't need to export they need to learn how to fish sustainably and market their beautiful country....not let it get sold down the hole by some bastard in his manson in down in Monterrey looking for some more quick bucks. Ignoring or giving into despair isn't going to help fix this problem only make it work better. LEW

[Darian]

Lew, I understood what the point of the video was and share the concern (in general) but don't think what I was saying is based in ignorance as much as the fact that we should clean up our own act before pointing our collective finger at others doing what we (U.S. commercials/poachers) already do. And, as I tried to point out, not all of the Dorado sold to U.S. consumers are illegally caught.

Frankly, I see the comparison between illegal Mexican commercial fishing with the current drug trade as a bit melodramatic. How many people have been shot or been decapitated by illegal commercial fishing in the Sea of Cortez???? Maybe Mexican panga fisherman won't join a drug cartel because they can make a good living elsewhere....