Herring trawlers don't need higher haddock cap

Your Jan. 18 article, "Herring fishery caught in rules web," contains factual inaccuracies and is misleading.

All of Georges Bank is currently open to midwater trawlers, including areas closed to the groundfish fleet. Industrial herring trawlers have only caught 78.8 percent of their haddock bycatch cap, which runs through April and will be renewed on May 1. With the renewal of the fishing year only a few months away, the fleet still has an ample 20 percent of the cap left — hardly an emergency.

Furthermore, as Norpel's Eoin Rochford stated, this fleet spends winters fishing for mackerel, not for herring.

Industrial midwater trawlers were allowed to fish in New England, including in areas closed to groundfishermen, on the claim that their huge nets were incapable of catching any groundfish at all. But that proved false. These vessels have been documented by federal observers with tows containing tens of thousands of pounds of groundfish, prompting them to go the New England Fishery Management Council to demand an allotment of haddock.

Read the complete letter from The Standard Times.