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News Conservation & Environment Striped bass facing decline, efforts to stem losses stoke tensions between commercial and recreational fishermen
News Conservation & Environment Striped bass facing decline, efforts to stem losses stoke tensions between commercial and recreational fishermen |
Striped bass facing decline, efforts to stem losses stoke tensions between commercial and recreational fishermen |
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The wily striped bass - admired by New England fishermen for centuries
- nearly disappeared from East Coast waters in the early 1980s. A
series of fishing moratoriums restored the stocks, and today a Cape Cod
scene is not complete without surfcasters trying their hand against the
powerful fish.
But the number of young stripers in Chesapeake Bay, where many of New England’s fish come from, is mysteriously beginning to slip again, a warning sign that the population could be in trouble. As scientists try to figure out why, a group of recreational fishermen is lobbying the Massachusetts Legislature to ban commercial fishing of stripers, exposing long-simmering animosities between some bass fishermen who cast for fun and those who do it for a living. Each group blames the other for the declining numbers - though research does not seem to implicate overfishing. |
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OPINION: Fishing families need Barney Frank in Congress
On Feb. 24 I attended the "United We Fish" rally in Washington, D.C.
