FLOUNDERING FISHERIES

While it is good news that the New England Fisheries Management Council delayed a decision on further reducing the amount of time fishermen may spend on the ocean, unless the time is used to find an alternative way to reduce the catch, fishermen will face a large reduction in the number of days they are allowed to fish.

Federal regulators want more fish left in the water to rebuild populations of cod, flounder and other species. The problem is that they continue to try to accomplish this by restricting the number of days fishermen may fish and by putting areas off limits to fishing. A proposal to reduce the number of days groundfishermen could fish to as few as 15 was under consideration earlier this month. The council voted to delay consideration of reducing days-at-sea until additional information on the number of fish in the ocean is available.

Further reductions will drive more fishermen, mainly those with smaller boats, out of the business, harming fishing communities and industries.

A more direct, and likely more effective, approach would be to restrict how much fish can be caught in total and by individual fishermen. While New England fishermen have long opposed such quotas – although they are working well in other parts of the country – the continued consideration of days-at-sea restrictions makes it clear that a new approach is needed.

One such alternative, area management, which empowers local groups to set rules for a small area off the coast, has worked well for Maine’s lobster industry. It is time to see if it also can work for the region’s troubled groundfishing fleet.

The Maine Legislature unanimously passed a resolution supporting this approach. Funding from Congress for a pilot project could get this work under way.

Fishermen and lawmakers would be wise to use the fisheries council delay to more fully investigate alternative ways to catch fewer fish now so more will be available in the future.