Officials to check equipment used to count fish

BOSTON – Boats used to conduct fish counts for the National Marine Fisheries Service will undergo a detailed equipment check following revelations that faulty equipment may have resulted in undercounted fish populations for the last two years, federal officials said.

“We need to restore public confidence,” Conrad C. Lautenbacher Jr., undersecretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere told The Boston Globe.

Lautenbacher has ordered a full review of equipment on about a dozen other boats that are chartered to survey New England fish populations. If the equipment is faulty or not checked regularly, he pledged to correct the problems and ensure regular checks.

“This has to be done right,” Lautenbacher said. “It’s too important not to do correctly. And we have to be open and aboveboard.”

Earlier this month, a Fisheries Service official said scientists recently discovered gear used in fishing survey trawls was not properly calibrated, raising questions about whether the stock was accurately measured. The problem was that a cable on one side of the net was apparently 5 1/2 feet longer than on the other.

Federal regulators have said that, though some fish stocks have rebounded during years of tight regulation, regional fishermen were still fishing at a rate three times higher than depleted stocks could handle.

Tough new proposed restrictions to stop overfishing could cut fishing days at sea by 50 percent and close prime fishing grounds just off the coast of Cape Ann, a move that fishermen in Gloucester say they won’t survive.

Next week, federal fisheries scientists, with invited fishermen, will survey fish populations with both matched and mismatched nets to detect any difference in fish catches.

Scientists will hold public forums in October to explain their findings.

But that may not be enough to satisfy critics. Fishermen and some academic experts say fish-counting errors could have led to years of incorrect data. Fishermen say even small differences in net-line lengths can cause nets to collapse underwater, catching fewer fish.

“These kinds of mistakes could have happened again and again and nobody would be the wiser because everything is taken as gospel,” said Cliff Goudey, marine advisory leader for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sea Grant college program.

In response to the discovery, U.S. Sens. Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry and members of the state congressional delegation suggested that regulators may need to delay strict new fishing regulations until they are certain of the seriousness of the counting errors. Lawmakers want an independent panel that would include fishermen, regulators, and scientists to review the mistake.