April 11, 2017 — Fishing has long been a staple industry in Rhode Island. Over the last century ever more local seafood is shipped across the country and the globe. Now, fishermen are working to grow the local market in the face of changing regulations and technology.
The Pawtucket indoor farmer’s market is bustling on a recent Saturday morning. Among the rows of vendors selling veggies, eggs, and homemade soaps is the Local Catch – purveyor of locally caught seafood. Laid out over shaved ice are fish like dabs, a type of flounder, John Dory, and Monkfish. It’s all readily available in local waters. Yet Rhode Islanders might be hard-pressed to find them in a neighborhood grocery store.
“Before we started the Local Catch I fished for about 35 years with my own boat,” said Local Catch owner Richard Cook. “We went to a couple fish markets at Stop and Shops and stuff like that and nobody had any local fish it was all from Alaska and China and all over the place.”
So Cook is working to grow local demand for a wider variety of fish. And that could benefit thousands of workers. The state supported some 5,000 commercial fishing jobs as recently as 2012, according the State Department of Environmental Management. That same DEM report found the state did $200 million dollars in commercial sales that year. Cook says that number could be higher, but fishermen are struggling with catch limits. Those are imposed by state and federal officials to protect the health of certain fish species.
One of the more popular local fish, cod has a catch limit of 1,000 pounds per boat, per day. So Cook and others are hoping other fish like scup will catch on. Scup – also known as porgy – can be found in Rhode Island waters, but has a catch limit of 50,000 pounds per boat per day.