Last year, Maine's world-class fishermen and their counterparts from around New England were able to land only 27 percent of the total allowable catch, costing our coastal economies over a half a billion dollars. This inability to meet their quota had nothing to do with their skill at their chosen profession. Rather, it was due to increasingly restrictive harvest limits based on woefully outdated and insufficient scientific data. Because different species of groundfish so often school together, they must be managed as a collective, meaning fishermen are constrained by the least healthy population — the lowest common denominator.
On May 1, the groundfishery began operating under a new and controversial management structure known as "sectors." Simultaneously, fishermen are now being forced to adhere to catch limits for some species that have been reduced by as much as 75 percent from the 2009 harvest levels. Maine has 5,500 miles of coastline, and a groundfish fleet that now consists of just 70 boats — one boat for each 80 miles of shore. While I hope the transition to sector management will ultimately prove successful in the effort to rebuild the economic and biological diversity of the fishery, the reality is with the current restrictions the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has imposed, there is no way the system will be able to function as it has been designed.
In fact, some fishermen have told me they caught more of one species, pollock, in a single tow last year than they have been allocated for the entire 2010 season. Frankly, it is preposterous to expect our fishermen to make a living when the first time they dip their nets in the water could shut down their entire sector for the year. Without change to this year's draconian catch limits, 2010 will be even less profitable and efficient than the lean years our fishing communities have so ably weathered in recent years.
Read the complete story at Sea Coast Online.