Safeguarding Our Waterways

I'm sure from the title most people would be assuming that today's blog is about the Coast Guard or other such government agencies which are tasked with protecting our waterways and bays from the spector of terrorism and crime. However my blog isn't quite about the group of people one would expect. Rather it's regarding a group I hadn't really heard about until I heard the news on the radio coming in this morning when they talked about the Natural Resources Police.

Now I have never fished in my life. I have eaten tons of it whether in the cooked form or as sushi but I've always ever left it to much abler people to actually catch the stuff so that I can enjoy eating it. However there are many Americans out there who find nothing more leisurely and enjoyable than fishing for a few hours and coming home with a fresh catch for dinner. Well it seems that in the current economic downturn, people are looking to the water to help keep their families well fed. Of course as with most anything else in this world, you can't really do it legally anymore unless you have a license.

One would think that with so many legal fishermen out there, there wouldn't be much of a stink over the occasional person fishing without a license but that's not the case. In the past year, citations for illegal fishermen has jumped from a little over 1000 to just over 1500 violations. Handing out and enforcing these rules on the Chesapeake Bay are the officers of the Maryland Natural Resources Police. These officers roam the water in search of fishermen who are fishing without a license or well above the limitations of their licensed limit.

I can understand the need for greater enforcement; after all, mankind (whether you believe it or not) has always had (and continues to have) an effect on the rest of the planet. We have wiped out forests and species of animals over the course of centuries and if we don't at least attempt to maintain some semblence of limits on some of these types of activities, it's quite possible that we could have adverse affects on aquatic life as well. I just find it both fascinating and sad that as more and more people are turning to an activity that helped sustain humankind in the early part of its existance that they are now being fined and charged for partaking in these same activities for the same purpose that originally inspired it; survival.

Already in the news you can hear about how people are being fined so much that they are facing jail time for not being able to pay off the fines. Now the Police themselves are just doing their duty and though in the news we hear about the occasional down-on-his-luck guy who gets caught for catching fish without a license, there are many more who abuse the fact that they don't have a license and ruin it for everyone. It seems that the more we rail against having rules and restrictions, the more common it becomes to find people abusing these rules leading to having more restrictions. It's a vicious cycle that is likely to continue for some time longer.