Regulations are preventing midwater trawlers from taking any more herring on Georges Bank for the rest of the fishing year because of limits on haddock bycatch, a situation Brian Rothschild from UMass Dartmouth's School of Marine Science and Technology calls bizarre.
Since 2006, fishery regulations restrict herring boats to just 0.2 percent of the overall haddock quota. That amounts to just 86 tons, at the same time approximately 28,000 tons of haddock will remain uncaught by all fishermen, said Eoin Rochford, operations manager for Northern Pelagic Group. Norpel operates the herring trawlers Nordic Explorer and Dona Martita from its processing plant on Fish Island in New Bedford.
There is no rational basis for these decisions by the New England Fisheries Management Council, said Rochford, who maintains they are politically motivated.
"There are only three commercial fishermen on the council," he said. "The rest of them are anti-fishing. Fishermen are not focused on political intrigue; they are focused on surviving the elements. So they are easy to defeat politically. They don't have the time to go to these meetings where you find these full-time lobbyists from well-funded environmental groups."
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