As fishermen prepare for a Feb. 24 protest in Washington, they are finding more to worry about in the proposed 2011 federal oceans budget — including a cut in funding for cooperative research programs, which in some cases have reversed pictures of fishery decline, and helped maintain quotas to keep fishermen working.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's 2011 budget request seeks $36.6 million to set up new management regimes, called catch shares, that will control fishermen's efforts by assigning them specific shares of annual quotas. Advocates of catch shares say it is a way out of New England's management morass, where captains and crews who work on cod and other groundfish species are squeezed by tighter limits on their working days at sea.
Disgruntled commercial fishermen will be joined Feb. 24 by recreational anglers and Shore party and charter boat captains, who have seen their access to fish like summer flounder and black sea bass severely cut back by mandates to rebuild those species to higher population levels within 10-year deadlines.