It is told that the catching of river herring has been prohibited in Massachusetts since 2006 and will remain so until next year. But Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen’s Association believes the decline and the slow recovery of cod stocks could be linked to the harvest of sea herring by mid-water trawlers. Lara Slifka, research programme coordinator for the Hook Fishermen’s Association, explained that a lot of fishermen say cod fishery boats are catching too much herring. She informed that one hundred thousand metric tons are caught out at sea.
This raises concern that cod and tuna numbers are down, and that this is a possible cause. Bill Overholtz, the head of the Pelagic Resource group at National Marine Fisheries Service in Woods Hole, told that the stock is not overfished and overfishing is not occurring. He added that the biomass is high and rate of removal is in an acceptable range. He precisely told that the estimated biomass of sea herring in the Gulf of Maine was 1 million metric tons, and last year’s harvest was 85,000 tons.
According to Slifka mid-water trawling started in Ireland then moved to Alaska, and a lot of these boats are from Alaska. She said they’re mostly owned by American companies. There is a lot of money behind these boats. The commercial industry has a lot of power. Slifka also told that herring is a low-price, high-volume fishery, and it’s even more inshore now with the price of fuel. The catch out there (Georges Bank) has been low having to do with travel time, the price of fuel and the probability of finding fish.
Slifka said that mid-water trawlers are much responsible for such huge catches of herring that has been banned till next year. Therefore it is now necessary for these MWT boats to notify regulatory bodies in advance of every trip and take an observer if one is sent.
