April 3, 2013 — Senator Jack Reed is trying to get Rhode Island a seat on the management board that oversees squid and other species caught by Rhode Island fishermen.
Rhode Island has the largest squid fishing fleet on the east coast, catching about seven million pounds a year. Squid catches are managed by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council. Rhode Island sits on the New England council. Senator Jack Reed thinks if Rhode Island is catching such a large bulk of the squid, then maybe it should have a seat on the Mid-Atlantic council as well. But Reed says the Mid-Atlantic board is resistant.
“It’s not particularly logical it’s more or less, ‘we don’t like change and this is change,’” says Reed. “But it just makes sense to me that since we pull so much of these species out, particularly squid, that we should be able to at least raise our voice about the policy and the procedures.”
Read the full story and listen to the audio at Rhode Island Public Radio