Scituate’s four remaining federal fishermen. Its time to revolt!
Jefferson Airplane – Volunteers (with Lyric) right click – Kevin Norton, Phil Lynch, Tom Bell and the Gustafson family operate five boats between them, down from 17 boats a decade ago and dozens 40 years ago. The decline, the fishermen say, is due to the massive influx of new fishing regulations over the years, coupled with recent changes in state and federal laws that make it nearly impossible for a new generation of fishermen to break into the industry. As a result, the five remaining boats could be the last to call Scituate home and the town’s once-rich maritime industry will be lost forever, they say. “If we don’t do something to change in the next year or so, we’re going to lose all the fishing boats in town,” Norton, who captains Miss Emily, said. “This harbor supports a lot of families, and that could go away really soon. >click to read<
Coming to the west coast as well. The trawlers were too greedy to realize what they were doing when they went along with the whole “Catch Shares ” scheme coupled with mandatory full time observers. The “rationalization” plan pretty much eliminated all of the smaller boats from trawling and gave the resource over to big operators but I suppose that’s the American Way. Small family business always loses to corporate. There’s only a small fraction of the previous number of trawlers left in California along with the related loss of processing. What’s left of the industry is now mostly in Oregon with a few boats left in Fort Bragg CA and a few in Washington.