Lack of fishing patrols creates worry

WASHINGTON – For more than seven years, a rich and storied New England fishing ground has been closed so cod, haddock and flounder stocks could rebuild. But since Sept. 11, there have been few U.S. Coast Guard patrols to keep out poachers.

The reductions in the patrols are hard to quantify but they have been felt from the Pacific Northwest to the Gulf of Mexico to New England’s famed Georges Bank.

Fisheries enforcement dropped by as much as 90 percent immediately after the terror attacks, when most cutters, aircraft and personnel were directed to homeland security.

Since then, some have been returned to their traditional work of enforcing drug, immigration and fishing laws, although officials won’t say how many, citing security concerns.

Officials acknowledge that enforcement in fisheries isn’t commanding anywhere near the level of attention it was before Sept. 11. That has raised concerns that hard-won conservation successes could be undermined.

The New England Fishery Management Council, which writes the region’s fishing rules subject to federal approval, was so worried about the potential for lawbreaking that it passed a motion at its first post-Sept. 11 meeting. The motion said that anyone taking advantage of the national crisis would be hit with the maximum penalty, including the loss of fishing permits.

“All the hardship and gains we’ve made over the last five years we could lose without strong enforcement,” said Paul Howard, the council’s executive director and former regional head of Coast Guard law enforcement. Critics of the Coast Guard’s annual budget crunch argue the current situation will persist until the agency gets more funding for boats, aircraft and personnel to cover old jobs plus new demands. The guard now is providing security escorts to military vessels in the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, site of the U.S. naval base where al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners are being held.

“It’s a human impossibility to enforce our fisheries laws under the current budget pressures,” said Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., who has proposed increasing the Coast Guard’s 2003 budget by at least $1 billion over the current $5 billion. The Coast Guard also received $18 million to activate its reserves and another $209 million in supplemental defense spending.

On Friday, President Bush, while touring a cutter in Portland, announced that he would propose the largest increase for the Coast Guard in years when he releases his 2003 budget request to Congress on Feb. 4.

For now, it’s a case of making do. While there was a Coast Guard boat, helicopter or aircraft surveilling the closed areas off New England roughly every day before Sept. 11, there have been only sporadic checks since the attacks, said Lt. Dean Jones, a spokesman. Three fishing vessels were caught in closed areas in the last quarter of the year.

Nationwide, the Coast Guard conducted 625 fishing boat boardings during the last quarter of 2001, less than half the number in the previous year’s comparable period.

Fishermen say there’s little temptation to break rules these days because stocks of yellowtail flounder, scallops and haddock are plentiful.

However, they do have their own worries about being stranded in the cold, stormy North Atlantic. That has always been a concern, but with fewer patrols on the high seas these days, fishermen are worried that rescue boats will have to travel from search-and-rescue stations on shore or other points hundreds of miles away.

Military units could also help but may lack the Coast Guard’s expertise in at-sea rescues. Fishermen are quick to point out that it was a Coast Guard cutter that rescued seven people, including an Air National Guard helicopter crew, during the 1991 storm that took the lives of the crew of the Andrea Gale, a swordfishing vessel from Gloucester, Mass.

“They need to be out there to save us,” said Bill Amaru of Orleans, Mass., who’s fished two to three times a week off Cape Cod, on average, during the fall and winter.

Usually, fishermen see frequent Coast Guard patrols in the air and water. “Since the middle of September, I haven’t seen a cutter out here,” he said.

The Coast Guard has tried to compensate for fewer patrols. It has been working closely with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which handles dockside enforcement and investigative programs. But NOAA, too, has had resources diverted to security, including agents who are serving as sky marshals on airliners.

Down the road, the Coast Guard’s work could be made easier if more fishing boats are required to use vessel monitoring systems to track their position, and if regulators heed suggestions to write rules that are easier to enforce. Such measures aren’t substitutes for patrols, but they could help close the gap.

“We’re still catching violators, it’s just at a reduced rate,” said Coast Guard Cmdr. Michael Cerne. “What exact level it’s going to return to, I think the jury’s still out on that.”