April 22, 2016 — While the feds used to pay for [at-sea] monitors, as of March 1st, fishermen have had to start footing the roughly $700-per-day cost.
John Bullard is Regional Administrator for NOAA’s Greater Atlantic Regional Fishery Office in Gloucester. His agency uses input from fishermen and scientists to set quotas and other regulations for the industry.
“It’s not that we wanted the industry to pay,” Bullard said. “We understand the hardship that the groundfish industry is under, believe me.”
Bullard explained that NOAA covered the costs of at-sea monitors for as long as it could. But that money is now gone. And he said the industry has had plenty of warning.
“We’ve been saying to industry, ‘You guys are gonna have to pay for this…not because we want you to, but because the money’s gonna run out.’ So this hasn’t been a sudden thing,” said Bullard.
Most groundfishermen now must scramble to come up with ways to pay for at-sea monitors. Meanwhile, others are trying another option: electronic monitoring with video cameras.