June 30, 2012 – During a six-year period that ended in 2010, federal managers estimate that trawlers dumped more than 67 million pounds of fish, equaling about 20 percent of the catch of marketable species. Under the new system, the waste has plummeted.
On a blustery afternoon off the Southwest Washington coast, skipper Kevin Dunn hauls up a net from the ocean bottom and dumps a pungent potpourri of black cod, Dover sole, rockfish and other sea life onto the deck.
Two deckhands sort, store and ice more than 3,000 pounds of fish that will be brought back to a shoreside processor.
Meanwhile, a biologist takes charge of the unwanted discards: a meager 40 pounds of sea stars, eelpouts and other unmarketable catch. He notes their species and weight before tossing them overboard.
These observers, largely paid by the federal government, are required to be aboard West Coast bottom-trawl boats whenever they drop nets — part of a radical overhaul of a troubled commercial-harvest system long plagued by overfishing and waste.
The new system divides the allowable catch among boat owners, giving each shares to 29 bottom-dwelling species.
The shares can be used by the owner, or eventually leased or sold like shares of stock, with their values tied to the health of the fisheries. Each pound of fish caught under this system — whether it is dumped or brought back to shore — is tracked by the federal observers. "This is a new day," said Dunn, 54, a fisherman whose boat is home-ported in Warrenton, Ore. "We're living under total accountability."
The catch-share system replaces a convoluted management system that fined fishermen for bringing too much fish back to port, and thus encouraged them to throw out the excess at sea.
During a six-year period that ended in 2010, federal managers estimate that trawlers dumped more than 67 million pounds of fish, equaling about 20 percent of the catch of marketable species.
Under the new system, the waste has plummeted.
In 2011, the first year of this plan covering more than 100 trawlers, less than 6 percent of the marketable species went overboard, according to preliminary statistics. For the fishermen, revenue in 2011 went up. The total catch was worth more than $31 million, a 14 percent boost from recent year averages.
Read the full story at the Seattle Times.