macojoe
12-13-2006, 04:02 PM
December 13, 2006
Fishermen hope to tip scales
By DOUG FRASER
STAFF WRITER
Cape Cod fishermen don't mince words about the cod, haddock and flounder regulations that have whittled fishing days down to 30 a year with little improvement in depleted fish populations.
'Everybody in this business is just disgusted with the way it's being managed,'' Chatham cod fisherman John Our said this week.
Attempting to get fishery management back on the right track, Congress last weekend passed its first major revision of the Magnuson-Stevens Act in a decade.
The act sets national standards that govern the country's regional fishery management councils and the National Marine Fisheries Service, which in turn write regulations to protect and rebuild the nation's fish stocks.
Reacting to pressure from environmentalists and fishermen, Congress essentially decided it was time to try something new. The revised Magnuson-Stevens Act strengthens the role of scientists in setting annual fish catch quotas and mandates the fisheries service to end overfishing immediately. It also advocates new management techniques intended to give fishermen a greater voice.
For the past decade or more, New England has cutback fishing days, limited daily catches and mandated gear changes that make it more difficult for fishermen to catch fish.
But with more than 1,000 fishermen chasing cod and other bottom-feeding species, those regulations proved too inexact. Chronic overfishing, and the wasteful discarding of fish that exceeded daily quotas, kept New England fish stocks from recovering. This, in turn, resulted in even harsher regulations.
In revising the Magnuson-Stevens Act, Congress, led by Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, went to the North Pacific playbook and enacted rules that give fishermen shares in the annual fish quota and allow them to manage a fishery like an employee-owned business.
Alaskan halibut fishermen, for instance, each have a percentage of a quota, based on what they historically caught before the quota system was instituted. Fishermen report daily landings electronically to keep from exceeding the annual allowable catch. It's in their own best interest to keep the halibut population robust. The more fish there are, the more each fisherman can catch.
Innovative Cape fishermen saw the merits in self-management years ago. For the past 18 months, 58 Cape hook fishermen - who catch fish with long lines of thousands of baited hooks - have controlled a 12.8 percent share of the annual Georges Bank cod quota. Following their lead, Cape gill-net fishermen received approval from the fisheries service last month to manage another 20 percent of the Georges Bank cod quota.
John Our is one of those 12 gill-net fishermen. Gill nets are rectangular panels of netting that stand vertically in the water, tethered between anchors and surface buoys. Fish swim into these nets and get entangled around their gills.
On a recent fishing trip, Our put out three sets of nets, catching his daily cod limit of 1,000 pounds by the time he'd hauled in the first two sets of nets. The third string of nets was loaded down with an additional thousand pounds.
Current regulations required Our to throw the additional thousand pounds of fish back into the water, even though they were dead. The discarded fish would have earned him thousands of more dollars for that fishing day.
Under the new gill-net management plan, Our said, he could keep any daily catch, as long as he didn't go over his annual portion of the quota. When he did reach that amount, Our would tie up his boat for the year.
Scientists aren't sure how much catch fishermen are throwing back to avoid going over their daily limits, but it is believed to be a big factor in the failure to rebuild some species such as cod. Our believes the new plan not only ends wasteful discarding, but also allows fishermen to catch the quota in less time, using less fuel, with less impact on fish stocks.
The plan reserves a portion of the 12 Cape Cod gill-net fishermen's overall quota as a buffer in case anyone does go over. An additional amount is reserved in case the group catches any cod while they are pursuing other species, such as monkfish.
With some scientists predicting the virtual extinction of commercially fished species within 40 or 50 years, federal managers are not just going to rely on fishermen to be honest.
This year, all groundfish vessels were required to install satellite monitoring devices that tell fisheries service enforcement agents where each boat is at all times.
Additional high-tech devices, including real-time electronic reporting of the catch and onboard cameras, are also being considered.
''People are going to resist change, but if you want to have accountable management, you have to have the tools to do it,'' said Peter Baker, fishing program director for the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen's Association.
Many feel that, with the Magnuson-Stevens Act revision and widespread discontent over current regulations, more fishermen will be turning to self-management. It's an appealing option when compared with the difficulty of staying in business with only 30 days to fish.
In the 1990s, Chatham day-
boat fishermen - like Our - typically fished for 100 or more days each year. Faced with only 30 days a year to fish, Our, and other New England fishermen, bought up boats and the permits that came with them. Our now owns 10 boats and permits. Regulations allow him to combine the total fishing days into one boat, giving him a total of 130 days at sea.
But while that arrangement got Our enough fishing days to remain profitable, it did not help the effort to restore fish populations.
''What they're doing now is not working to the nth degree,'' Chatham gill-net fisherman Mark Smith said. ''We're trying. Guys want to see the fishing come back.''
Doug Fraser can be reached at [email protected].
(Published: December 13, 2006)
Fishermen hope to tip scales
By DOUG FRASER
STAFF WRITER
Cape Cod fishermen don't mince words about the cod, haddock and flounder regulations that have whittled fishing days down to 30 a year with little improvement in depleted fish populations.
'Everybody in this business is just disgusted with the way it's being managed,'' Chatham cod fisherman John Our said this week.
Attempting to get fishery management back on the right track, Congress last weekend passed its first major revision of the Magnuson-Stevens Act in a decade.
The act sets national standards that govern the country's regional fishery management councils and the National Marine Fisheries Service, which in turn write regulations to protect and rebuild the nation's fish stocks.
Reacting to pressure from environmentalists and fishermen, Congress essentially decided it was time to try something new. The revised Magnuson-Stevens Act strengthens the role of scientists in setting annual fish catch quotas and mandates the fisheries service to end overfishing immediately. It also advocates new management techniques intended to give fishermen a greater voice.
For the past decade or more, New England has cutback fishing days, limited daily catches and mandated gear changes that make it more difficult for fishermen to catch fish.
But with more than 1,000 fishermen chasing cod and other bottom-feeding species, those regulations proved too inexact. Chronic overfishing, and the wasteful discarding of fish that exceeded daily quotas, kept New England fish stocks from recovering. This, in turn, resulted in even harsher regulations.
In revising the Magnuson-Stevens Act, Congress, led by Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, went to the North Pacific playbook and enacted rules that give fishermen shares in the annual fish quota and allow them to manage a fishery like an employee-owned business.
Alaskan halibut fishermen, for instance, each have a percentage of a quota, based on what they historically caught before the quota system was instituted. Fishermen report daily landings electronically to keep from exceeding the annual allowable catch. It's in their own best interest to keep the halibut population robust. The more fish there are, the more each fisherman can catch.
Innovative Cape fishermen saw the merits in self-management years ago. For the past 18 months, 58 Cape hook fishermen - who catch fish with long lines of thousands of baited hooks - have controlled a 12.8 percent share of the annual Georges Bank cod quota. Following their lead, Cape gill-net fishermen received approval from the fisheries service last month to manage another 20 percent of the Georges Bank cod quota.
John Our is one of those 12 gill-net fishermen. Gill nets are rectangular panels of netting that stand vertically in the water, tethered between anchors and surface buoys. Fish swim into these nets and get entangled around their gills.
On a recent fishing trip, Our put out three sets of nets, catching his daily cod limit of 1,000 pounds by the time he'd hauled in the first two sets of nets. The third string of nets was loaded down with an additional thousand pounds.
Current regulations required Our to throw the additional thousand pounds of fish back into the water, even though they were dead. The discarded fish would have earned him thousands of more dollars for that fishing day.
Under the new gill-net management plan, Our said, he could keep any daily catch, as long as he didn't go over his annual portion of the quota. When he did reach that amount, Our would tie up his boat for the year.
Scientists aren't sure how much catch fishermen are throwing back to avoid going over their daily limits, but it is believed to be a big factor in the failure to rebuild some species such as cod. Our believes the new plan not only ends wasteful discarding, but also allows fishermen to catch the quota in less time, using less fuel, with less impact on fish stocks.
The plan reserves a portion of the 12 Cape Cod gill-net fishermen's overall quota as a buffer in case anyone does go over. An additional amount is reserved in case the group catches any cod while they are pursuing other species, such as monkfish.
With some scientists predicting the virtual extinction of commercially fished species within 40 or 50 years, federal managers are not just going to rely on fishermen to be honest.
This year, all groundfish vessels were required to install satellite monitoring devices that tell fisheries service enforcement agents where each boat is at all times.
Additional high-tech devices, including real-time electronic reporting of the catch and onboard cameras, are also being considered.
''People are going to resist change, but if you want to have accountable management, you have to have the tools to do it,'' said Peter Baker, fishing program director for the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen's Association.
Many feel that, with the Magnuson-Stevens Act revision and widespread discontent over current regulations, more fishermen will be turning to self-management. It's an appealing option when compared with the difficulty of staying in business with only 30 days to fish.
In the 1990s, Chatham day-
boat fishermen - like Our - typically fished for 100 or more days each year. Faced with only 30 days a year to fish, Our, and other New England fishermen, bought up boats and the permits that came with them. Our now owns 10 boats and permits. Regulations allow him to combine the total fishing days into one boat, giving him a total of 130 days at sea.
But while that arrangement got Our enough fishing days to remain profitable, it did not help the effort to restore fish populations.
''What they're doing now is not working to the nth degree,'' Chatham gill-net fisherman Mark Smith said. ''We're trying. Guys want to see the fishing come back.''
Doug Fraser can be reached at [email protected].
(Published: December 13, 2006)