A governing member of the PSO is the Shimano Sport Fisheries Initiative, an organization sponsored by Shimano, Inc., the foreign manufacturer of fishing (and bicycle) equipment with U.S. operations headquarters in Irvine, Calif. According to the Chicago Tribune, Shimano is "one of the major players in worldwide fishing rod and reel sales" (June 4, 2008).
Unfortunately, Shimano doesn’t practice what former U.S. division president and its founder's grandson, Kozo Shimano, preaches. He recently told a sports magazine that “Obviously, the more fish there are, the higher probability that someone will catch a fish. If there are no fish to catch, no one buys fishing tackle.” (Bikeradar.com, March 5, 2009).
Exactly, Mr. Shimano.
Yet Shimano is a strong force behind anti-MLPA efforts in California. In a July 2008 speech, an American Sportfishing Association board director praised Shimano and four other organizations for their “significant” contributions to suspending the MLPA.
Even when the most anti-environmental administration in U.S. history thought some marine life protection was necessary in the Pacific Ocean, Shimano opposed those limited measures tooth-and-nail. The director of environmental affairs for Shimano, Phil Morlock, told The Washington Times (June 4, 2008), that it “Looks like the coastal angling community is going to be sandbagged by the (Bush) administration.”
Besides Shimano, other “significant” PSO backers include the National Marine Manufacturers Association and fishing equipment manufacturer Wright & McGill.
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In 2000, Wright & McGill Co. was named one of the top five “Polluters reporting the greatest amounts of toxic chemical indirectly discharged” into sewers in its home state of Colorado, according to the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. The company reported contributing 28,000 pounds of toxic chemicals to sewage facilities in 1997. (Source: USPIRG, “Poisoning Our Water” report, February 17, 2000)
The company's board chairman contributes almost exclusively to anti-conservation candidates and committees, including thousands to the National Republican Senatorial Committee. (Source: Federal Election Commission).
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