FISHING FACTS SUMMARY


The New England fishing fleet has sacrificed a lot of effort in the last decade because of pressure to do so from environmental groups, NMFS, and the individual state managements. Most fish species are showing strong signs of recovery. Fishing has been better the last few years than can be recalled in the last 40 years, but still the environmentalists' drums keep pounding for tighter restrictions on just about all fisheries. The environmental groups' refusal to recognize the vast rebuilding that has taken place within our fisheries since 1994 and the failure to give credit to the fishermen's sacrifices in getting there is beginning to anger many people.

There may be a crisis in many fisheries worldwide that need to go through the reforms which we have had to contend with the last decade, but we don't have control over other countries and their environmental affairs. It is unfair, unwise, and unrealistic to be blamed for overfishing in places where we do not have any control.

The refusal to recognize the successes resulting from our sacrifices by environmental groups does not make sense. Could it be that it is a part of an underlying master plan to eliminate all fisheries along New England shores to make way for oil activities?

It is our opinion as a small land based support business, that the mother of all environmental groups is "PEW" (PHEW) which refuses to communicate to the media and the general public the positive results in the fish management efforts. The "Empty Net, Empty Oceans" reports that are fed to the public sway their opinion towards the fishermen in a negative light, and make narrow minded people think of them as environmental terrorists or worse.

This environmental group, their followers and employees make a comfortable living out of crises, and their aim is to keep a crisis alive and well for their personal gains.

"PEW"'s tactics have disregard for hard working people. Outdated unrealistic reports "STINK" like their very name, and for the sake of this country's economy and national security should not be allowed to continue their evil ways.

The following points about fishing are the truth in the fishing business from our view in the year 2003. If you have any comments, corrections or additions please email us at: reidars@comcast.net

(1)In the 1960's the New England continental shelf was the target of massive fishing efforts from western Europe and Russia,and by the time the 200 mile economic zone was implemented, this massive effort had already broken the back of many species like Herring, Haddock,and Cod. But, the U.S. NMFS "best available science", at the time believed there was plenty of fish to support a sizable domestic fleet. After the foreigners left our shores the feds began encouraging a domestic fishing fleet buildup through subsidies, tax credits, guaranteed loans, capital construction funds and with very relaxed bank loan policies. Through the 60's and 70's, and into the 80's, you could fish anywhere you wanted--Georges, Browns, Sable Island or Grand Banks. "Those were the days, my friends, we thought they'd never end."

Then came the Hague line which gave the best fishing grounds to Canada and warning flags arose across the north east. Suddenly there were too many boats for the areas left for the U.S. fleet. All the big trawlers from Boston and Maine could no longer fish where they used to and fell upon hard economic times. One by one they disappeared from the scene. Many boats that were built for the ground fishery became scallopers. But the leftover boats were also too many for the dwindling supply of fish. There where also many large draggers from Massachusetts and Rhode Island that all through the 60's and into the 70's dragged the Continental shelf and Canyons for lobsters exclusively; with the onslaught of offshore trap boats the draggers ended up chasing fish (These where the years we truly overfished). By the time the 1990's rolled around fish were becoming so scarce that something had to be done to correct the situation. This paved the way for corrective actions from the NMFS's, NEFMC, to implement permit moratoria, close areas, and restrict days at sea for scallopers and draggers. These amendments became known as amendment 5 and 7. Days at sea were cut by 20% each following year until the buyback was introduced and sucessfully executed in 1997.

The buyback grant money sparked an interest in the environmental groups across the country. They found out that here was an ongoing crisis and the feds were throwing money around to fix things. They naturally figured that since the feds were spending taxpayers money for this crisis, they would like to have a say in where and how the money was put to use. They wished to force their disaster statistics upon the government and the efforts of regulating fishing with input from the industry and its social economics needs. Even now after the fish stocks have been on a rebound since 1995, the evironmental groups are hung up on "the fish are going extinct" theory,they will keep this crisis going until the public and Federal Government wake up to the fact that the crisis is over.HELLO!!!!

The fact is the fishing fleet began shrinking just after the US/Canadian border became finalized, but there were still too many boats in all the fisheries and it took measures like permit moratorium, together with limits of fishing days,closed areas,and the buyback of permits to make a huge difference in our rebuilding efforts. It is too bad buybacks did not cover scallopers and squid/whiting boats.

But, the pesky environmental groups are still beating their doomsday drums, the"PEW" groups are still raising a STINK, even now after their lawsuit victory resulting in amendment 13 and 45% reduction in effort on top of the approximate 50% reduction from years before. Across the board the East Coast fishing fleet has been cut back about 80% from its former glory days.

The final chapter due to be implemented in the spring of 2004 may very well bring the effort cut level up to 90%, leaving most boats with too few fishing days to safely and economicly operate their boats. This action will bring on consolidation in some form plus a total allowable catch (TAC) for all species and most likely individual transferrable quotas (IFQ's) as well.

Our fishing industry as we now know it will slowly and systematicly transfer into company-owned fleets that will employ fishermen only, they will never see a chance to own a boat himselves, only to be able to work for others.