Tag Archives: midwater trawling
Herring disaster funds should be used to phase out harmful trawling
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is releasing $11 million in disaster relief funds to Atlantic herring harvesters, of which $7 million will go to Maine. These funds should be used to phase out herring trawling by buying back fishing permits in an effort to increase herring stocks and to protect other marine life. U.S. Atlantic herring landings in the 2000s averaged 206 million pounds annually but have since decreased to below 22 million pounds in 2020 and 2021. The New England Fishery Management Council led a process to craft a 10-year rebuilding plan. This dramatic downturn in herring is likely because variables with climate change are reducing ocean productivity resulting in seven consecutive years of low numbers of young fish surviving to maturity. >click to read< 12:58
Cape Cod fishermen want to see “buffer zones” for midwater trawling in the region
Cape Cod fishermen are looking for regulators to address the impacts of industrial midwater trawling in the region. The New England Fishery Management Council recently voted to analyze possible “buffer zones” to limit where trawlers can fish to help manage the herring fishery. Current regulations protect waters up to 40 miles offshore from Canada through Cape Cod Bay for about 10 months out of the year, according to local fisherman Pete Kaizer, from the fishing vessel Althea. “What they’ve done in the last seven or eight years is they have depleted this whole flow of forage food coming down this coast and therefore we have seen a decline, and the localized depletion, of predators,” Kaizer said. Read the rest here 11:13
