Enforcement

Unless I completely misread Jim Balsiger’s most recent My View column in the Gloucester Daily Times, "Can gear technique ideas solve fisheries challenge" (The Times, Friday, May 8), the assistant administrator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fishery division appeared to be strongly hinting at the previously unimaginable.

In that communique, addressed to the troubled fishing community of Gloucester, Balsiger seemed to be suggesting not only that New England fishermen might soon partner with the government in addressing the many problems associated with an industry long beset with internal contradictions and, more recently, increasingly burdensome regulations and restrictions imposed by external forces, but also that it’s fishermen, themselves, who may yet turn out to be the chief proponents and practitioners of successful fisheries management and conservation, a view no doubt regarded with great skepticism among many on both sides of the current fisheries dispute.

Indeed, given the acrimonious, decades-long dysfunctional relationship that has existed between New England’s commercial fishermen and both government regulatory and non-governmental environmental organizations, such a prospect might seem about as likely as the sudden reappearance of a Tyrannosaurus Rex on the crowded streets of today’s Manhattan.

Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.

The administration of President Barack Obama has asked for USD 18.6 million in fiscal 2010 budget money for new cap-and-trade regulatory fisheries programmes. The catch-share programme initiative would signify major changes in fishery management and an effort to preserve and recover wild fish stocks.

The amount requested is triple the National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS) bid for catch shares in its 2009 budget and about nine times over the USD 2 million it granted to catch shares last year, reports The New York Times. The NMFS received a budget proposal of USD 921 million – the proposal would amount to 2 per cent of this.

The proposal signals officials government backing for the management system, which is still in the minority but spreading ever since a federal moratorium expired five years ago.

Read the complete story at FIS.

The Obama administration is proposing significant new spending on a proposed cap-and-trade regulatory scheme for fisheries — a major overhaul in fishery management and a bid to halt the decline of wild fish stocks.

In its fiscal 2010 budget request, the administration is asking for $18.6 million for "catch-share programs."

While that is only 2 percent of the $921 million budget proposal for the National Marine Fisheries Service, it is triple the NMFS’s request for catch shares in its 2009 budget and a ninefold increase over the $2 million it allocated for catch shares in 2008.

The request indicates a major push from the administration to advance the management systems, which are still in the minority but have started to appear in fisheries across the United States since a federal moratorium expired five years ago.

Read the complete story at The New York Times.

European demand for the triangle-shaped wings of skate fish has created a prosperous skate wing industry here: Groundfish vessels offload skate wings, which are processed at local fish plants and shipped fresh or frozen to supermarkets, restaurants and institutions in France and other countries.

The wings have the taste and texture of scallops and are sometimes poached in a sauce made of butter and capers.

While Europeans maintain a strong craving for skate wings, managers of local fish processing plants fear the skate wing industry is in danger of collapse.

New fishing regulations, slated to take effect early next year, will reduce skate wing catch limits by about 90 percent — from 20,000 pounds per trip to 1,900 pounds per trip.

Read the complete story at South Coast Today.

The new commercial fishing season that began May 1 amounts to more – or less – of the same. After 15 years of reductions in how often fishermen are allowed to work, the latest rules leave a typical boat with just 39 fishing days during the next 12 months.

This season, however, may be the last of its kind. New England’s 400-year-old commercial fishery is on the verge of reinventing itself in hopes that a new way of doing business can save the industry while rebuilding populations of cod, haddock, flounder and other groundfish.

The management philosophy that has relied on keeping fishing boats away from the fish is likely to be replaced by a more direct approach. If approved as expected when fishery managers gather next month in Portland, groups of fishermen – called sectors – will each be given an annual share of the region’s overall catch quota, which they can fish for whenever they want.

Read the complete story at Portland Press Herald.

New England’s economy was built on the teeming fishing grounds off its shores, turning the region into an international powerhouse by the eighteenth century.

The advance of technology increased the efficiency of fishing operations. Unfortunately, misguided management decisions gave an illusion of prosperity that persisted until recently; as fish dwindled, the dollars kept flowing. Today, over half of the historic fish populations are desperately overfished, a mere shadow of what they were, and the recent decade has witnessed a mass exodus of fishermen from the historic fishing industry.

Now, the news reminds us repeatedly of the demise of this iconic industry. What happened to the fish that supported the fishermen and their families, poured money into our coastal communities and put food on our tables? And is there any hope for a brighter future?

Read the complete story at The PEW Charitable Trusts.

Fishermen are often at odds with environmentalists, but both sides are increasingly finding themselves in agreement behind a movement to jettison the current method of restricting New England fish catches in favor of locally managed fishing sectors.

The Pew Environment Group released a report on Wednesday that aims to bolster the move to sectors – a change that many fishermen hope could be put in place by regulators by the start of the next fishing year in May 2010.

The sector system would essentially give groups of fishermen assembled by port an annual limit on the amount of certain kinds of groundfish they could catch. The fishermen could then decide how those limits would be divvied up among themselves.

Read the complete story at The Patriot Ledger.

Up next: spilling of secrets, range war, guinea pigs and stacked pennies. Who knew zoning could be so interesting? You’ve heard of land use planning to shape growth on land. Now it seems the great, wide ocean isn’t big enough for all the different interests that want a piece of it. The surge of wave power projects may be the final straw to bring zoning to the high seas. Correspondent Tom Banse reports from Charleston, on the south Oregon coast.

One at a time, fishermen step into the back room of the Basin Cafe to spill their secrets to strangers.

Bonkoski: "We’d like you to show us the areas most important to you."

A detailed marine chart covers half of the corner table. A fisherman takes the hot seat and proceeds to give away his hot spots. He’s J.D. Evanow, a commercial salmon and tuna boat owner with 32 seasons on the water.

Read the complete story at KUOW.