SEABROOK – May 9, 2011 – The federal government's new "catch share" system has been literally killing off the state's 400-year-old commercial fishing industry, fishermen and state experts told a panel of federal officials yesterday.
The controversial method of allocating who can catch fish has cost the state's only fishing cooperative, located in Seabrook harbor, $750,000 in business, and cut the number of fishermen landing catches by two-thirds. It has killed off fishing jobs and exacted a high price on the lives of the men of the state's fishing fleet — resulting in suicides and divorces.
Several officials from the U.S. Commerce Department heard testimony from fishermen and state experts yesterday as part of an inquiry the federal government is conducting into the catch share system it implemented last year. Seabrook is one of six Northeast landing ports where the meetings are being held.
Read the complete story from The Gloucester Times.