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ELLSWORTH — The
coastal herring fishery will close tomorrow for
the remainder of 2004. Having reached 53,840
metric tons of the 60,000-ton Area 1A total on
Nov. 6, regulators decided Monday to close the
area to all but incidental herring catches
starting Nov. 19, the same date it closed in
2003.
Area 1A runs up
the coast from Cape Cod to New Brunswick, and
encompasses some of the most productive and
easily accessible herring grounds in
New England waters.
The closure
isn’t a surprise. It comes nearly every fall at
this time. But this year, it comes at a time
when the herring industry has been beset by
accusations of excessive groundfish bycatch. In
three cases, those accusations led to formal
notices of violation and fines levied by the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The violations,
all issued Oct. 12, cited each vessel for
possessing illegally caught haddock. While the
federal enforcement agents would not disclose
the amount of fish involved in each case, they
did note that the three vessels were boarded in
port, where they attempted to sell the illegally
caught haddock that was mixed with their legal
herring.
The largest fine
went to the fishing vessel Sunlight of Rockland.
Her owners, the O’Hara Corp. and Joseph Martin,
were fined $50,000 for the violation, which
occurred in early August.
A $25,000 fine
was levied against the owners of the Providian
for a similar violation Aug. 10 in Portland.
A $10,000 fine
was issued to the fishing vessel Challenger for
similar bycatch violations in Gloucester, Mass., in mid-July.
The fines are a
symptom of an emerging problem, according to
Mary Beth Tooley, who runs East Coast Pelagics
Association, a trade group of about 20 herring
boats from New Jersey to Maine. While the letter
of federal fisheries law states that there will
be no bycatch of haddock or other groundfish by
herring boats, Tooley said herring gear “has
never shown zero by-catch.”
She stressed
that it can usually be reduced and kept low.
However, a marked increase in the population of
young haddock in the Gulf of Maine will
eventually lead to bycatch problems for more
than just herring fishermen, she said.
“Herring is just
the first one where it’s been a problem,” she
said.
Tooley predicted
future problems for fishermen targeting whiting
and other groundfish as the haddock grow to a
size where they stay in the trawl.
The problem has
grabbed the attention of the New England
Fisheries Management Council, which has created
an ad hoc bycatch committee to address the
issue. Tooley and others have requested that the
group should first focus on herring fishery
issues.
In addition to
the government regulators taking action,
Tooley’s group has teamed up with Associated
Fisheries of Maine and American Pelagic
Association to convene a Dec. 13 workshop in
Portsmouth, N.H. Tooley said the effort is to
bring together fisheries stock assessors,
behaviorists, fishing gear designers and
fishermen to work on the selectivity of herring
gear.
For now, she
said, many herring boats have been avoiding
George’s Bank in efforts to steer clear of
potentially expensive haddock bycatch. Other
mid-water trawlers have been able to find
herring not mixed with haddock, just off the
edge of the bank. She said, with the closure of
1A most herring fishing effort will be confined
to 1B for the rest of the year.
The New England
Fisheries Management Council’s Herring Advisory
Panel and Herring Oversight committees met
Monday to review proposed policy changes that
will go before the full council later this week.
They are focused, among other things, on
specifics of observer coverage for the herring
fleet. |
