July 16, 2012 — It appears that fisheries regulators don’t seem to understand that fishermen are in business. Last weekend’s Squid closure is a fine example of that suspicion. Trimester 2 of the Squid Fishery closed midnight on Monday July 9. The closure was not completely unexpected, catches had been good, and like last year the spring spawn run of Loligo Squid had been successful both for the fishermen and apparently for the Squid (the bottom was covered with eggs). Groundfishing has been devastated due to cock-eyed allocations of quota in the catch share management scheme, and closures in the Gulf of Maine fishery; consequently there were more boats in the Squid fishery this year from ports that normally focused on groundfish during this time, so more boats and larger landings.
There was good, fairly consistent, fishing through the spring and into July. Most boats were finally making some money after a relatively austere winter, and many fishermen with their understandable and justifiable cynicism were saying, “…this won’t last, I’m actually paying some bills and making a few bucks, they’ll likely shut us down soon.”
The shock was not that the Squid Fishery was being shut down; the shock was the level of disregard and disrespect for the fishermen in the way this fishery was shut down.
A letter was issued on Friday July 6th and mailed (regular mail) the same day sometime on July 6th from NOAA/NMFS’s Gloucester office announcing a Squid fishery closure on Monday midnight July 9th (all boats landing Squid were to be at the dock by midnight). This was the only vehicle used to announce the closure. There was no announcement from NMFS through the Weather or VHF or SSB radio, the VMS email, or the home email for that matter. NMFS definitely has access to the weather radio, Ch 16 VHF, USCG SSB, fishermen’s Boatracs™ VMS and home email addresses, they’re constantly telling fishermen when and at what time to the second that they cross the demarcation line or when there’s a whale in the vicinity. They’ve announced closures to boats at sea through the radio and VMS email before—but not this time. The first word of the closure to the Point Judith boats came from the fish buyers/processors in PT. Judith through a (non-official) VMS email at 9am on Monday morning; this “unofficial” message created a great deal of confusion and consternation. Only after Satellite phone contact was made with the NMFS Office of Law Enforcement was it ascertained that this was an official closure. The defining answer from OLE was received at sea through VMS email at 10:30am. Some vessels from the Point Judith, RI fleet were 120nm away at this time and had no chance of landing before midnight, so OLE gave permission to land and pack out after midnight.
Here’s the problem, no email or radio announcements were sent on Friday when the closure was apparently decided, no warning, no advance notice. Boats that left port on Friday or Saturday, after taking $5,000 worth of fuel and $1400 worth of ice, barely made it to the grounds, found the fish (if they were lucky) and had begun fishing, when they were “unofficially” told to stop fishing and return to port. There are probably some boats that were not on the fish buyers’ email lists that were still out there fishing as of Wed. July 11th without a clue that they are in violation of a closure (regular mail is not delivered at sea these days). What will happen to them? Confiscate their catch? Or if they are permitted to land their catch after 5 days (the typical maximum Squid trip for a boat that doesn’t freeze on board) what about the boats that cut short their trip after one day of fishing —because they were “lucky enough” to get word—and so went in the hole for the ice and fuel bill?
Squid is a staple for the boats in Southern New England, especially since most have lost half their income in the groundfish catch share debacle. The Squid involved in this closure have spawned and most are headed back offshore to spend their final days. Squid live for little more than a year, so to shut down harvesting these fish at this time is idiotic to begin with but even more so since there’s no “overfishing limit” on this a species that’s difficult if not impossible to survey accurately. However, to implement the closure in a way that disrespects, in fact, completely ignores the people that are taking the risks and have the most at stake in a healthy fishery is adding insult to injury and is completely unacceptable behavior on NOAA’s part.
This situation needs to be investigated and the responsible parties need to be held responsible for their ignorance, arrogance, incompetence and/or perhaps agenda-driven hostility toward the fishing industry.