A petition was filed by the Midcoast Fishermen’s Association and Fisherman Curt Rice which sought to stop industrial Atlantic herring trawl ships from slaughtering cod, haddock, and other groundfish in sanctuaries designed for their protection. For years industrial Atlantic herring trawl ships have caught groundfish in their nets as bycatch contributing to the steep decline and slow recovery of these fish populations.
NMFS has rejected the petition in November 2007 in a cursory one-page letter stating it was not concerned about the levels of groundfish bycatch by midwater trawl ships. In the latest ruling, Federal Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola found the agency’s failure to explain its reasons for denial “fatal”. The court has considered all the appropriate data in support of the petition, including scientific analysis showing that the amount of groundfish bycatch occurring is significantly worse than even existing data shows.
Glen Libby, a groundfisherman from Port Clyde, Maine and chairman of the Midcoast Fishermen’s Association ( MFA ), said that nobody should have access to groundfish closed areas unless it’s established through a carefully designed exempted fishing permit with the highest levels of monitoring that they can fish cleanly.
Earthjustice attorney Roger Fleming told that NMFS’s failure to carefully monitor midwater trawl ships and to protect groundfish nursery grounds from their indiscriminate fishing practices has been a significant factor in the slow recovery of the once-robust groundfish populations. In issuing his opinion, Judge Facciola found that the agency did not address in any manner those points made by the MFA that the midwater trawl access to groundfish closed areas is based on an incorrect assumption, that current bycatch estimates are fundamentally flawed, and that the agency failed to provide a clear rational for its decision.
