According to the report U.S. Rep. Frank Guinta has promised local fishermen he’d work across party lines to develop a game plan to try to save the already endangered commercial fishing industry. He said that he realized during his campaign the commercial fishing industry in New Hampshire is in crisis.
Guinta came to hear the concerns of fishermen from Seabrook, Hampton and Portsmouth who have seen their incomes slashed to fractions of what they once earned. He mentioned that the shortening of shrimp season adds to the financial burden resulting from restrictions on groundfishing established by federal regulators at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency and the National Marine Fisheries Service.
Bob Campbell, manager of Yankee Fisherman’s, said that the new regulations caused fishing revenues to be reduced by about half. Guinta said that new regulations now restrict the number of pounds they can catch. The pound allocation is determined by regulators based on fishermen’s recorded catch from 1996 through 2006. The local fishermen said that formula may work well for large fishing concerns, but it’s devastating for small businessmen like themselves.
Neal Pike, president of Yankee Fisherman’s Cooperative, said that during the 10-year period from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s, many fishermen believed regulators who told them not to be shortsighted by overfishing local waters. New Hampshire Fish and Game Chief Doug Grout, one of New Hampshire’s three commissioners on the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, said that the change in the allocation system has been a very difficult process.
