Economic Impact

April 1, 2013 — Federal fishing managers officially announced their plans to drastically cut the amount of fish that can be caught in New England waters.

Watch the full video from WWLP

April 3, 2013 — The Gulf of Maine Research Institute has informed Saving Seafood that it has Trawl to Table Gloucester open for industry members.

The Gulf of Maine Research Institute invites groundfish permit holders and captains to attend a day-long event focused on building awareness of the sustainability of the groundfish resource and improving the profitability and resilience of fishing businesses.

Please join chefs, restaurant owners, and food service professionals for an informative gathering that will include:
– Interactive gear displays,
– The latest in gear research and quality handling technologies,
– Important information on accessing restaurant and food service markets, and
– Emphasis on the value of promoting underutilized species.

Restaurants sell 70% of the seafood consumed in the United States.

Chefs and restaurant owners influence what consumers want. Successful chefs are most concerned with quality of product, traceability, and sustainability. Yet, they often lack access to the latest and most accurate information on Gulf of Maine seafood and the industry that harvests it. This is your opportunity to have a conversation with chefs from your area about the importance of sourcing locally and supporting Gloucester’s fishing fleet. Space for this event is limited and will be available on a first-come, first- served basis. Please RSVP soon to reserve your spot by contacting Patty Collins at (207)228-1625 or patty@gmri.org.

When: April 10th, 2013 from 8:30am to 4:30pm

Where: Maritime Gloucester, 23 Harbor Loop, Gloucester, MA 01930

This event is hosted by the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, in partnership with Maritime Gloucester and Cape Ann Fresh Catch, with funding from the National Marine Fisheries Service.

For more information on Trawl to Table please visit www.gmri.org/trawltotable

April 1, 2013 —  Where have the fish gone? Unsurprisingly, scientists, regulators, and fishermen all have their own hypotheses. Some claim that climate change has pushed the schools into deeper water; others say that predators like seals and dogfish have devoured the cod; still others claim that large boats have been hammering spawning aggregations and preventing the fish from breeding. Whatever the case, cod are few and far between in the once-fecund waters that lured Europeans to the New World. “There’s been an extreme contraction of the resource,” says Aaron Dority, director of the Downeast Groundfish Initiative, a project to rebuild Maine’s groundfish stocks. “You can’t find Gulf of Maine cod outside of a few select areas.”

Utter collapse wasn’t what regulators expected back in 2010, when the New England Fisheries Management Council implemented a catch shares system for the region’s groundfish industry. Catch shares are a form of fisheries management that turn public fish into private property, by splitting up a fishery’s scientifically determined “Total Allowable Catch” into exclusive slices of a pie. Each fisherman is granted a slice of the pie, and fishermen are allowed to buy, sell, or rent their slices (Read “Net Benefits,” the Journal’s earlier report on the system).

Catch shares have been credited with restoring fisheries from Alaska to New Zealand, and at their best they can be a boon to fishermen by promoting flexibility. If, say, one boat-owner is looking to scale up his operation while another has a herniated disk that’s keeping him off the water, catch shares allow the laid-up fisherman to rent or sell his share to the ambitious one. Today, 15 different US fisheries are governed by catch shares, and several more programs are in development. (While most catch share programs allot fishermen “Individual Transferable Quotas,” or ITQs, New England’s system organizes fishermen into cooperatives called sectors, which distribute shares among their members.)

Yet while catch share programs hold promise, they are not without problems. Foremost among these is determining how large a slice each fisherman should receive. Most catch share systems — New England’s included — use historical catch data to determine allocations, a method that some call “rewarding the pigs.” The fishermen most responsible for historic overfishing are grandfathered into the lion’s share of future fish. Meanwhile, younger fishermen without extensive catch histories receive comparatively tiny slices, and are forced to supplement their shares by leasing quota — often from “armchair fishermen” who keep getting paid to rent out their shares even after they’ve retired.

For those fishermen who weren’t fortunate enough to get their allotment for free, renting the right to fish can excise a huge chunk from their bottom lines. One study of British Columbia’s halibut fishery found that fishermen who were forced to lease large amounts of quota tended to be “less viable or marginally viable.” In New England, where the Total Allowable Catch was set at an extremely low level, the divide between the haves and the have-nots was especially stark. “If you’re fortunate enough to be granted sufficient initial allocation to fish, then you’re at a significant advantage relative to a fisherman who’s been granted a far lower initial allocation,” says Dority.

As these unlucky lessees quit fishing, and armchair fishermen discharge their quota to the highest bidder, access to fish often ends up concentrated in the hands of the fishermen with the most buying power. According to a NOAA review released in December 2012, that appears to be what has happened in New England’s groundfisheries since the inception of catch shares. In two years, the total number of vessels regularly catching groundfish dropped from 601 to 450, a loss of 25 percent of the fleet, and trips to sea taken by crewmen declined by 11 percent. Meanwhile, the number of boat owners with three or more vessels increased by a third, and over 85 percent of groundfish revenues piled up in the hands of just 20 percent of vessel owners. In all, there are now fewer fishermen in New England than when catch shares began, and the ones left standing are catching a larger share of the fish.

Read the full story at Earth Island Journal

April 1, 2013 — Looks like Old Man Winter has been able to accomplish what lobster fishermen haven’t been able to do for themselves over the past few seasons. He’s driven up the price of lobster.

Last week fishermen – those who fish during the winter months – were being paid a shore price of $8 a pound for their lobsters. That’s a far cry from the $3 price back in the fall.

And while lobster prices typically go up over the winter months when there is a shortage of supply, in the past couple of seasons the higher price still wasn’t what fishermen had been hoping for.

There has been a catch with the higher price, however, and it hasn’t always been in the lobster traps. Part of the reason for a more limited supply has been due to the weather over the past few months. Numerous storms and high winds in January, February and March have kept fishermen ashore more often than in past years. Although now that spring has arrived, fishermen are getting out on the water more.

“Without a doubt weather has been a major factor for the first time in four or five years,” says Marc Surette, the executive director of the Nova Scotia Fish Packers Association. “On top of that it seemed to set in earlier than usual and rarely offered many windows to get out. That limits the supply drastically when coupled with very small catches throughout the winter.”

Surette called the situation this winter a “perfect example” of how the supply/demand formula works in the fishery – fewer lobsters landed equals higher price. At this same time, this isn’t a peak time for the product.

Read the full story at the Yarmouth County Vanguard