Although Atlantic herring was not on the agenda for the recent meeting of the New England Fishery Management Council, the groundfish bycatch issue in this fishery reared its head yet again and drew four hours of discussion and debate. Ironically, this was triggered by herring midwater trawl representative’s claims that they are catching so much groundfish, in this case haddock, as to constitute an emergency. And their proposed solution? That immediate emergency action should be taken to let them catch more haddock.
In 1994, nearly all fishing was banned from waters identified as part of an important plan to aid the recovery of overfished groundfish stocks, such as haddock, cod and flounder. One of the few successes in New England’s groundfish fishery is the rebuilding of haddock, and it was achieved through the sacrifice of groundfishermen, including those from Cape Cod, who have strived for conservation. These areas remain closed to groundfishermen unless they are fishing in one of a few tightly controlled opportunities to enter the areas called Special Access Programs. And in order to establish one of these special fisheries, groundfishermen must conduct rigorous scientific experiments in which they first fish in the area with 100% observer coverage with 100% of the catch inspected and demonstrate that access is appropriate. CCCHFA fishermen did just that between 2003 and 2005, conducting almost 150 research trips in order to establish one Special Access Program.
While herring trawlers were also initially banned from fishing in these groundfish closed areas, in 1998 federal regulators re-opened them to these vessels, who claimed their fishing gear would not catch groundfish. It was largely this belief that was used to justify this change, as data was unbelievably scant: 13 tows, also known as hauls, half of which were from another fishery entirely, and none of which appear to be in the actual areas in question. Contrast that with the 147 trips comprising 640 hauls and over 600,000 hooks, in all months that were required of CCCHFA just for one small part of one closed area.
Read the complete story from Herring Alliance.