The National Marine Fisheries Service has announced a series of meetings designed to combine feedback and training for the groundfishing fleet, which has been struggling for a month now with a new management regime and what fishermen say are confounding mandates.
The most aggravating — according to sources at the Gloucester-based Northeast Seafood Coalition, the founder of 12 fishing cooperatives or sectors under the new catch share management format — are the on-board observer requirements.
Although the government requires observers on 38 percent of the boats working under sectors, Richard Burgess, captain of the fixed gear sector from Gloucester and owner of a four-boat gillnet fishing business, said the observers are not ready for their work.
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