Posted on 05/01/2002 5:16:29 AM PDT by ninonitti
Scores of New England fishermen faced this morning not knowing how they will pay their bills and feed their families, as the new fishing season opened today with the most severe restrictions ever to hit the centuries-old industry.
``I got a truck payment, a house payment, my wife has a car payment and I got two young kids, but I can't work,'' said Paul Theriault, 37, a Rockport fisherman who will likely turn to a construction job to keep his family, including a 1-week-old baby girl, afloat.
``With these new rules, I'm allowed to go fishing for a total of six days during May, June and July,'' Theriault said. ``I'm all done.''
Under a sweeping federal order issued Friday, 1,800 square miles of prime fishing grounds off Boston's North and South shores and the tip of Cape Cod will be closed during May. Another huge section off Cape Ann and southern New Hampshire will be closed in June. And prime off-shore fishing grounds east of Cape Ann, known as Cashes Ledge, will be closed year-round.
The closures are in addition to several others, effectively shutting fishermen out of thousands of miles of ocean.
The order also drastically cuts the number of days fishermen will be allowed at sea starting Aug. 1, and eliminates the ability of an estimated 340 to fish altogether.
Citing the ``harsh'' effects of the order, the state's Division of Marine Fisheries yesterday filed a motion asking a federal judge to reconsider her actions.
U. S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler issued her April 26 order in response to a lawsuit by environmentalists, who accused federal fishing regulators of failing to protect depleted stocks of cod and other groundfish.
Many had expected Kessler to approve a less-strict agreement to ease overfishing, which had been reached April 16 by environmentalists, fishermen and others. A number of parties who signed that agreement, including state officials, now are asking for a reconsideration.
``I am pretty freaked out,'' said Billy Crossen, 50, a Gloucester fisherman who isn't sure how he will pay his crew, and the insurance and loan on his boat, with all of the cutbacks.
In New Bedford, owners of the Whaling City Seafood Display Auction are expecting their supplies to dry up. Last year, about 100 South Shore and Cape Cod fishermen hauled three-quarters of a million pounds of fish to them just in May and June.
``That translates to about $75,000 in gross revenue for those two months for this auction house,'' said Raymond Canastra. ``But to those vessels, you're looking at a three-quarters-of-a-million dollar loss to fishermen.''
Hoping to rally political and financial support as they legally fight the federal order, dozens of fishermen with the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition plan to slowly sail their boats through Gloucester Harbor this Sunday, just as candidates running for governor visit the fishing city.
She's doing it "for the fish"
The judges action defies common sense. If the stocks are depleted, then the fishermen can't catch enough and go out of buusiness. The arguments the environmentalists make must probably follow traditional communist econmomic logic: unless unless the state owns eveything, collectivism won't work. Therefore, testing communism on small collectives won't prove their effectiveness because everybody is not playing by the same rules. Carry this logic into the fishing business. The capitalist fishermen will make big hauls until there are no more fish. The environmental communists fail to explain how capitalist fishermen can make a big haul in a depleted resource. But, who expects logic to flow from the mouths of environmental communists.
You might want to re-read the post....they voted for a reasonable compromise. Gladys took it upon herself to come up with this draconian plan based on God knows what. The fact is that cod stocks are way up allover Massachusetts bay and the Gulf of Maine.
BTW Gladys is also the same US Judge who refused to seat Dubya's nominee to the Civil Rights Commission.
If you want to know why the cod fishery collapsed, and why a lot of other fisheries (swordfish, for instance) are in trouble, I invite you to read a long and extensive analysis:
Collapse of the Northwest Atlantic Cod Stocks
Below are a few selected excerpts that provide information that addresses your question.
1. "The Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) attempted to regulate harvest over the Grand Banks, but made many mistakes and miscalculations which led to overfishing and the eventual closure of the fishery in July 1992. The mathematical models used for setting the Total Allowable Catch required scientists to make several assumptions that were untrue, and thus the "safe" catches were overestimated. Consequently, the cod breeding stocks were overfished until too few mature fish (5-7 years old) existed to lay eggs and thus recruitment fell below an acceptable level."
2. "Many management related factors led to inappropriate Total Allowable Catch (TAC) limits set by the DFO. Among these factors are under-reporting of catch by fishermen, improved technology on vessels making it possible to catch more fish per unit effort, and foreign fishing."
3. "One of the main errors was relying too heavily on commercial catch data to estimate recruitment and population size. Catch data may easily be forged and fishermen can simply cheat on the catch quotas."
4. "The effects of the previously discussed environmental conditions on cod are not clearly proven, but anomalous environmental factors may increase the likelihood of cod distribution patterns and ecology being altered. For example, cold, less saline conditions currently being observed in the Grand Banks have increased the likelihood a mismatch exists between spring blooms of phytoplankton and hatching of cod eggs. The oceanic changes also have apparently pushed the polar front further east, placing the spawning grounds of some Grand Banks cod into arctic rather than boreal waters and driving older cod to depths more than 400m (Conover et al 1995)."
To address your original question, there are two main reasons that fishermen can (for awhile) continue to make large hauls in a depleted resource. The first is improved technology making it easier to find and harvest the last remaining large stocks. The second is that these endgame efforts deplete the "feeder" stock which still has to mature to be the main breeding stock, but the larger fish (the normal main breeding stock) have already been taken.
Interesting that the seal population along the New England coast which was once reduced to a tiny population has returned to where rookeries are everywhere. The seals are catching their fish in a "depleted" stock without the help of any advanced technology. I wonder how that works.
Are the seals exclusively existing on cod, or perhaps utilizing a variety of fish in their diet? Are the seal populations similar to what they were before the establishment of the New England and Canadian fisheries?
A bit more info can be found here:
THE GROWING SEAL POPULATION IN THE GULF OF MAINE
For one thing, it indicates that the low seal populations were due to hunting, not a reduction in fish stocks. There was actually a seal bounty, according to the article. I didn't know that.
Another article on the Web says this about what the seals eat (hooded seals, which are an Atlantic species):
"The hooded seal eats mainly deep water fish including redfish, Greenland turbot, herring, capelin, cod, halibut, and flounder. Its diet also includes shrimp, octopus, and mussels."
Doesn't sound too exclusively limited to one species, so that probably explains why the populations are increasing.
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