Local fishermen have another bone to pick with the mid-water trawler fleet.
They’ve long accused the boats, which are up to 150-feet long, of depleting local resources through their bycatch of everything from haddock to river herring to cod.
But last Friday the New England Fisheries Management Council revealed the trawlers had overshot their quota for Atlantic Herring (their actual target) caught off of Cape Cod by almost 40 percent. And they did it in two week’s time.
Atlantic herring is an important food for striped bass, bluefin tuna, cod and haddock among other key targets of the local industry. Commercially they’re sold as sardines and kippers but most of the catch winds up as bait, primarily for lobster and also tuna, crabs etc.
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