According to the local news agency river herring would remain off limits to fishermen for three more years as the state poised to extend the ban. This means that local fishermen will go another three years without the favorite bait of striped bass. It is said that the Division of Marine fisheries voted to continue the ban and is waiting for the secretary of state to ratify the measure.
The authority has informed that the moratorium against catching herring will be in effect up and down the Eastern Seaboard, from Maine to the Carolinas, in a joint effort by the coastal states to protect the species. It is told that the new ban will take effect Jan. 1, the day after the current ban expires.
Paul J. Diodati, director of the state Division of Marine Fisheries, expressed that in these three years the state has researched the dwindling numbers of herring and concluded that predators — namely striper, seals, dog fish and cormorants — are a prime cause. He added that there are 60 million stripers in Massachusetts waters and about 30 million herring. Peter J. Andrade, a Middleboro police lieutenant, says it is a shame he will be unable to use the natural bait that is so plentiful within his town.
Andrade opined that extra herring were frozen and used as cut bait for the remainder of the season. Diodati said that it’s possible to change the size limit, lowering it to make them more available to folks. It could help the herring populations.
