November 13, 2013 — The hope is that the signal of the pingers will discourage harbor porpoises — small 5-foot-long mammals protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act — that eat herring, capelin and other schooling fish, from swimming into the nets and becoming entangled.
From Dec. 1 to May 31 each year, while these porpoises are in the seas off the Cape, gillnet fishermen are required to attach two pingers per net, but they were having trouble with the devices they purchased at more than $70 apiece. Fisherman Jim Nash said the batteries were failing below 420 feet and there was no way to know whether a device was working because engine noise and wind often masked the signal. Nash said fishermen were losing at least 25 percent of them to damage every year.
Thanks to a special purchase brokered by the Northeast Seafood Coalition, gillnet fishermen could exchange their old pingers for new ones and pay a nominal fee of $15. The Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen's Alliance covered that cost for local fishermen who brought their old devices in Tuesday and received new ones at no charge.
Dodge said that generally fishermen pay out of their pockets for other devices to protect marine mammals, such as breakaway links for whales that doubled the cost of their nets.
**Editor's Note: The article states that the purchase of the pinger was "brokered by the Northeast Seafood Coalition." According to Jackie Odell, Executive Director of the Northeast Seafood Coalition, the purchase was actually made by the Gloucester Fishing Community Preservation Fund. The Northeast Seafood Coalition played no financial role in acquiring the pingers.**
Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times