This is a personal statement of fact concerning one small fishing business, comprised of one vessel, with one Multi-Species groundfish license. This is a local New England small business that employs 5 fishermen and supports 5 families with eight children. My wife and I have our life savings and retirement invested in it.
Our 73 foot ground-fishing vessel was acquired in July of 2005. This vessel was an upgrade from a smaller vessel which, although well found and stout, was too small to safely fish offshore in the North Atlantic, full time, year ‘round.
The new vessel’s hull and basic machinery were sound but neglected, and were in need of rehabilitation; so from July of 2005 through October of 2006 the vessel was laid up and totally refitted, deck, superstructure, electrical and machinery, were rebuilt or replaced. The dates of lay up are significant because during the period that NOAA decreed as the “qualification period” for the allocation of catch shares, i.e. the fishing years 1996 through 2006, the only fishing trips that occurred under my ownership of this vessel in that period were initial “shakedown” trips. These trips were made solely for the purpose of ascertaining the repairs and upgrades that were still needed, and not aimed at accumulating large catches. Most such trips were local and for non-groundfish species.
In other words, the fish poundage allocation this vessel was assigned by NOAA was based solely on the catch history of the previous owner. I purchased the vessel when the “currency” for fishing allocation was in the form of Days-At-Sea; this license had the maximum days allowed at the time. The rules changed recently from the “effort control” of days-at-sea to basing allocation on the total accumulated poundage of catch per license, per species, during the 1996-2006 fishing years period, and then measuring this poundage against the total poundage per species landed by all boats in that period.
The previous owner of my boat and license fished three boats concurrently, so my vessel was fished only a portion of the available time, and not always for groundfish, but also for Squid, Whiting, Scup, and Fluke, species that are not counted as groundfish and would not figure into in my current catch share allocation for groundfish.
The result is that my vessel was allocated a very small percentage of the significant groundfish species, approximately 5% of the amount of fish that we have landed per year over the last 4 years under the days-at-sea system, and a catch amount which is necessary for this operation to remain viable. In all likelihood our survival will be a matter of months under the current allocations for the catch share scheme.
The New England Fisheries Management Council’s own figures show that New England groundfish are 80% rebuilt, 15 of the 19 species are completely rebuilt and overfishing is not occurring. The other 20% or 4 stocks are on the rise and are on schedule to achieve healthy numbers. Only 25% to 40% of the amounts of fish declared by government scientists available to be safely harvested have been landed in recent fishing years. Due to overly cautious and inflexible regulations we are being prevented by NOAA/NMFS from harvesting even the sanctioned yearly allocations; and this is why fish landings are down; it is not for a lack of fish swimming in the ocean. Overfishing is not occurring in New England; the fish stocks are healthy. After 20years of sacrifice and fleet downsizing, the fish are back in force.
A major restructuring of the fisheries, such as imposing the catch share/sector regime, is completely unnecessary. Testimony from the majority of fisheries participants, living under catch shares for at least 5 years or more, shows that such a system is counter- productive for the fish stocks and irreversibly destructive to the well being of the fishermen and their communities. Most yearly Total Allowable Catches have diminished under catch shares, consequently fleets have been devastated, jobs lost, and fishing communities and infrastructure gone forever.
The majority of local fishing operations are in similar straits to mine; some are in worse predicaments; and some have already disappeared. The implementation of the Amendment 16 catch share/sector scheme must be stopped before the few remaining boats like mine are gone; and we lose this entire industry, and with it we lose a vital source of healthy food.
Dick Grachek is a retired fisherman and is owner of the F/V Anne Kathryn out of Stonington, Connecticut and Point Judith, Rhode Island. The vessel's captain is Joe Mattera.