June 9, 2023 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is convinced that fish stocks in New England are declining, and they’re regulating fishermen into oblivion as a result.
There’s no evidence that they’re right. In fact, NOAA doesn’t have any reliable evidence at all. The agency has not completed a full survey of New England fish stocks in four years. The government’s recent attempts to jump start the process are floundering.
I’m leading a new coalition of lobstermen, fishermen, and fishing-adjacent businesses called the New England Fishermen Stewardship Association (NEFSA). We launched this advocacy group, which is open to all industry stakeholders and friends of fishing and the marine environment, because federal regulators are grossly mismanaging our fisheries and pose a lethal threat to fishermen and the oceans. NOAA’s ham-handed effort to gauge the health of the biomass in New England is one such example.
As National Fisherman readers probably know, NOAA sets quotas for particular species based on data it collects from its research vessels. NOAA’s research vessel for the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic is the Henry B. Bigelow, homeported in Newport, R.I. The ship is currently conducting the northeast spring bottom trawl survey.