Friction prevails these days among fishermen, regulators and the environmental community, but the one thing they all agree on is that better science is needed.
That’s why once a year, Jimmy Rhule, who normally uses his boat to land squid and herring, takes a group of scientists on board for a trawling survey.
Five marine biologists from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science board Rhule’s 90-foot trawler Darana R. every summer and tow a specially designed net on the ocean bottom from Montauk, N.Y., to Cape Hatteras, N.C., with trips to Rhode Island Sound and Block Island Sound, searching for answers.
In October, they were towing off Wildwood and Cape May. The event is known as the NEAMAP — Northeast Area Monitoring & Assessment Program — survey, and it is funded by fees paid by fishermen.
The NEAMAP survey works ocean waters of 60 feet or less and is one of several East Coast trawl surveys that gather information on fish stocks.
The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection runs its own trawl survey in shallower waters, while the federal government tows a net farther offshore in deeper waters from the vessel FSV Henry B. Bigelow.
Rhule, 61, of Wanchese, N.C., is there because he doesn’t believe the scientists know how to catch fish. If a government-set net doesn’t bring in a lot of fish, that could be the start of another fishing quota, or even a moratorium, he says.
Read the complete story at The Press of Atlantic City.