A new Fisheries Management Plan has been created for the fishery that has been closed since 2014.
August 21, 2017 โ For more than 20 years, Dana Hammond made close to half his annual income shrimping. But his shrimping profits began to dwindle in 2013. That season, regulators were alarmed by the lack of shrimp biomass in the Gulf of Maine, and the amount he was allowed to catch was cut 72 percent. The fishery was closed entirely in 2014. It hasnโt reopened since and Hammond, who fishes out of Portland on his boat the Nicole Leigh, has been trying to make up the deficit from his other main source of income, groundfishing.
But Hammond isnโt ready to let shrimping go. Itโs an ideal winter fishery for him, allowing him to stay close to shore during rough and cold weather. Heโs so vested in the future of the fishery that this summer he went to sea with the Northeast Fisheries scientists who conduct the annual summer survey, the main source of data that determines the status of the fishery every year.
โI didnโt get paid,โ Hammond said. โI went anyway because I want to make sure they are doing stuff right.โ
Hammondโs goal is to help the scientists be better fishermen โ the more they catch, the more likely it is his fishery will reopen. Or better put, the more shrimp the survey finds, the better chance it is that there will be another season for Maine shrimpers. The survey concluded earlier in August and though its findings wonโt be available until late October, it is the key to determining whether Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission will decide at its meeting in early to mid-December whether to reopen the fishery for the tiny Northern shrimp (Pandalus borealis) in 2018.
In the event that the fishery does reopen, it will likely follow different rules. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has, with the cooperation and input of local fishermen, developed a new Fisheries Management Plan, updated in consideration of the recent problems in the shrimp fishery. That plan, known as Amendment 3 will be finalized at a meeting in Portland on Aug. 31.
Typically, putting the regulatory side of a fishery in contact with those who do the fishing entails some tension, distrust even, the kind that can make for a combative relationship. The people who make their living on the water donโt want to be told what to do and how to do it, especially not by people who came up in the world of petri dishes and test tubes, not traps and trawls.
But as the Northern shrimp fishery faces the most extreme challenge in a history that spans nearly a century, the relationship between shrimpers and scientists has become, cautiously, more collaborative. The more so the better, from the perspective of fisheries biologist Peter Chase, who oversees the annual survey for the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administrationโs (NOAA) Northeast Fisheries Science Center. Heโs used to getting a lot of questions about the survey as soon as he comes ashore in summer โ starting with, โdid you see a lot of shrimp?โ Moreover, he understands the frustrations of the fishermen. Some of them โhave been vocal about complaining about our survey,โ he said. โOthers have been really helpful.โ Like Hammond.
โIt shouldnโt be an us-versus-them thing here,โ Chase said. โI donโt want to put anyone out of business.โ
โWe want to be in this together,โ he added. โThis is research that I am hoping will show that the resource is coming back.โ