Saving Seafood

Many Maine fishermen applaud Trump order calling for deregulation

April 21, 2025 — Many Maine fishermen are applauding a new executive order from President Trump, which calls on the federal government to identify and roll back regulations that are overly burdensome to the commercial fishing industry.

The order signals that the Trump administration wants to listen to commercial harvesters and involve them in decision-making and research, said Ben Martens, executive director of the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association.

“There are a lot of regulations that you could take a scalpel to, right? We can clean things up,” he said. “There’s a piling up regulations that takes place over time, and so I think it needs to be done carefully.”

Jerry Leeman, CEO of the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association, described the order as a “long time coming.” Many of his members have long questioned the data that federal fisheries regulators use to conduct stock assessments and set stock limits.

Read the full story at Maine Public

Frustrated Fishermen Demand Answers, Transparency After Vineyard Wind Failure

August 2, 2024 — Members of the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association (NEFSA) and the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA) are demanding a thorough investigation into the recent incident involving a detached blade from a Vineyard Wind turbine.

The mishap, which occurred on July 13, resulted in widespread debris across significant fishing areas from Nantucket to Cape Cod, causing concern among local fishermen.

Jerry Leeman, CEO of NEFSA, expressed the community’s frustration, stating, “Trust between fishermen and offshore wind developers is at an absolute nadir.”

Read the full story at Shore News Network

MASSACHUSETTS: How foreign private equity hooked New England’s fishing industry

July 6, 2022 — Before dawn, Jerry Leeman churned through inky black waters, clutching the wheel of the fishing vessel Harmony.

The 85-foot trawler, deep green and speckled with rust, was returning from a grueling fishing trip deep into the Atlantic swells. Leeman and his crew of four had worked 10 consecutive days, 20 hours a day, to haul in more than 50,000 pounds of fish: pollock, haddock and ocean perch, a trio known as groundfish in the industry and as whitefish in the freezer aisle.

As sunrise broke over New Bedford harbor, the fish were offloaded in plastic crates onto the asphalt dock of Blue Harvest Fisheries, one of the largest fishing companies on the East Coast. About 390 million pounds of seafood move each year through New Bedford’s waterfront, the top-earning commercial fishing port in the nation.

Leeman and his crew are barely sharing in the bounty. On deck, Leeman held a one-page “settlement sheet,” the fishing industry’s version of a pay stub. Blue Harvest charges Leeman and his crew for fuel, gear, leasing of fishing rights, and maintenance on the company-owned vessel. Across six trips in the past 14 months, Leeman netted about 14 cents a pound, and the crew, about 7 cents each — a small fraction of the $2.28 per pound that a species like haddock typically fetches at auction.

“It’s a nickel-and-dime game,” said the 40-year-old Leeman, who wore a flannel shirt beneath foul weather gear and a necklace strung with a compass, a cross, and three pieces of jade — one piece for each of his three children. “Tell me how I can catch 50,000 pounds of fish yet I don’t know what my kids are going to have for dinner.”

Leeman’s lament is a familiar one in New Bedford, an industrial city tucked below Cape Cod on the south coast of Massachusetts. In recent years, the port of New Bedford has thrived, generating $11.1 billion in business revenue, jobs, taxes and personal income in 2018, according to one study. But a quiet shift is remaking the city and the industry that sustains it, realizing local fishermen’s deepest fears of losing control over their livelihood.

Read the full story at The New Bedford Light