May 5, 2017 — Commercial ground fishermen on the east coast are struggling–so much so that there’s concern about whether they, and not the fish they catch, are an endangered species. An organization called New Hampshire Community Seafood is launching an effort to get more Granite Staters interested in eating local seafood, with the hope that it’ll provide a boost to fishermen. For our series Foodstuffs, NHPR’s Peter Biello reports.

On a quiet and foggy morning, commercial lobster fishermen Lou Nardello pulls his boat into a dock in Seabrook. The 60-year-old first began fishing 35 years ago. After a long break, he recently returned to this line of work.

“I guess you can’t get the ocean out of your system. It just stays there,” Nardello says. “You get older and realize it’s time to do what you want to do.”

What Nardello wants is to put a “full compliment of traps” out in the ocean and pull in a profitable catch. He says right now lobster prices are good.

“Nobody’s really catching much and everyone’s just getting going, so prices are pretty high,” he says.

But it’s tough for Nardello to know exactly how much he’ll make throughout the year. Prices will fluctuate as more lobsters hit the docks. To get fishermen like Nardello the best possible price, New Hampshire Community Seafood is hoping to stimulate demand in local seafood by getting more folks to join their Community Supported Fishery, or CSF. This CSF delivers seafood to its members the way a farm share doles out local tomatoes and spinach.

Read and listen to the full story at New Hampshire Public Radio