Stop Rape Of Oceans

Editors:

Reading ``The Snag With Drift Netting'' in Pacific Magazine, Jan. 6, made my blood boil!

How dare the Japanese, Taiwanese and South Korean drift-net fishermen be allowed continued use of their ocean resource-depleting nets. At the rate they are destroying the Pacific Ocean fishery, there won't be anything left for them or other countries in a few years.

Audubon Magazine reported in its January 1991 issue that Taiwanese drift-net fishermen invaded the Atlantic Ocean for the first time last year.

If our weak-kneed government, led by a son of big oil, can't - won't - impose an economic and trade embargo on gluttonous nations, then the citizens of this country must take action to stop the rape of the oceans.

You and I, the consumers and taxpayers, can bring this devastating fishery to a complete stop.

We resolve not to buy another consumer good or service produced by Japan, Taiwan or South Korea until they quit using drift nets.

These countries complain they need fish for their diets. Fine, but this fishery must not be done without regard to other marine resources in the ocean.

To these wanton destroyers of sea life I say, use long-line fishing or other techniques that don't kill everything in its path. Develop aqua-farming.

When these greedy SOBs finish stripping the ocean of its marine resources - it probably won't take long for that to happen - starvation will become a reality for more millions of the earth's children.

- Rich Royston, Mount Vernon