CHATHAM — The National Marine Fisheries Service had planned to hit a fleet of large vessels that catch Atlantic herring with big quota cuts this year for going way over their allowed catch in 2010 in an area off Cape Cod.
But a procedural glitch delayed action and allowed the fleet to again exceed its quota by millions of pounds.
While some say the fisheries service is to blame for not getting the quota cut implemented in time, there are others in the Cape fleet who believe the herring industry had plenty of notice and willfully overfished herring again.
At stake, local fishermen say, is the fish that forms the base of the food web in local waters.
Herring are considered a keystone species because they convert plant energy — plankton — into protein, and are in turn eaten by important commercial species such as cod, bluefin tuna and striped bass. Fishermen argue that when the herring are fished out of an area, other essential species leave, making it harder for the small vessels with limited range operating out of Chatham, Harwich, Provincetown and other ports to find fish.
Read the complete story from The Cape Cod Times.