LETTER: Clam fishermen put forth proposal that protects the resource
Last week, the New England Fishery Management Council voted to kick Massachusetts surf clam fishermen off of 80 percent of our historic Nantucket Shoals fishing grounds. Our fishery in these treacherous local waters grosses $10 million per year to the dozen or so boats and their crews, and multiples more to the South Coast fishing economy. Our catch is hand-shucked for a higher value. New Bedford, Fall River, Gloucester, and Bristol, R.I. families stand to lose hundreds of jobs. While the council’s decision was based on habitat considerations, it rejected an option that would have allowed us to fish on about 80 percent of the available surf clam resource while allowing access to less than 20 percent of the overall habitat zone. >click to read<19:45
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