Saving Seafood

Edgartown Mass. commercial fishermen continue to adjust to new realities

September 2, 2015 — Edgartown’s commercial trap fishing industry is tough work. It is evident as much in the number of working boats and fishermen seeking conch and sea bass as it is anecdotally. Those fishermen who remain put in long days and work under strict quotas and regulations. However, fishing is all they’ve done for most of their lives, and they say they are committed to riding out what wave is left of the local industry.

Island landings of channeled whelk, commonly referred to as conch, the most lucrative species caught in Island waters, are valued at more than $2 million each year since 2011, according to the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF).

Behind conch are oysters, with Martha’s Vineyard landings valued at $1.3 million in 2014. There is one important distinction. Unlike conch, which are  wild-caught, oysters are for the most part raised in the protected waters of Island bays and ponds. Bay scallops, which are propagated as part of an extensive taxpayer-supported program, accounted for just over $700,000.

Even as conch fishing holds steady, the number of commercial fishermen registered as Island residents has started to decline, according to the DMF. In 2008, there were 360 registered Vineyard commercial fishermen. As of 2015, there are 263.

“Conch fishing is tough fishing,” commercial fisherman Tom Turner of Edgartown said as he replaced lost or damaged sea bass traps aboard his boat, the Sea Raven, docked at Memorial Wharf in Edgartown on a hot and sunny August afternoon.

The commercial sea bass season is short. Fishermen can only go out three days a week: Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and each day they fish, they’re allowed to catch no more than 300 pounds of sea bass, Mr. Turner said. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) sets quotas and updates fishermen as they change.

Read the full story at Martha’s Vineyard Times

 

Cape Cod legislators urge Baker to spread relief funds across the fleet

September 2, 2015 — CHATHAM, Mass. – Legislators from the Cape and Islands urged Gov. Charlie Baker to reconsider his current proposal to allocate $6.6 million in federal fisheries disaster money to fishermen who had caught at least 20,000 pounds of groundfish — bottom-feeding fish like cod, haddock and flounder — in 2013 and 2014. Cape fishermen said it would benefit only a relative few boats; they had proposed that the state Division of Marine Fisheries use $4 million to pay for monitors who ride along on groundfish vessels and report on what fishermen catch and what they discard.

“It became apparent to us that that was not going to work,” said Claire Fitz-Gerald, manager of the Georges Bank Fixed Gear Sector, representing 24 boats, and headquartered in Chatham.

There was strong sentiment within the Massachusetts fleet for direct aid to fishermen, and Gov. Baker and the state’s congressional delegation sent a letter to U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker and House and Senate appropriations committee chairmen claiming that federal requirements for fishermen to carry observers was an unfunded mandate and the federal government should pay for them, not fishermen. The letter also said paying for observer coverage was not the intent of Congress when it appropriated the federal fisheries disaster money.

Read the full story at Cape Cod Times