Allowing midwater trawlers to fish unmonitored in closed breeding areas for groundfish is a mistake. Justin Libby is a third-generation groundfisherman and the captain of F/V Capt’n Lee out of Port Clyde. He is a member of the Midcoast Fishermen’s Association.
He has seen many changes out on the water, but none is as frustrating to him as the double standard of what are called “closed areas.”
He informed that issues surrounding these regulatory closures are being addressed in the development of what is called Amendment Five to the herring fishery management plan, which is the subject of a two-day Herring Oversight Committee meeting beginning today in Portland.
In the mid-1990s, groundfishing was banned in five designated areas off New England’s shores. These areas are supposed to be undisturbed, which sounds like a good plan, but unfortunately, the rules for other fisheries are not the same as they are for groundfishermen.
Technically bottom trawling is ban in these areas but the authority has given permission to use midwater and pair trawl gear used in the Atlantic herring fishery in the closed areas, and this is just wrong. Herring trawl gear is supposed to be used in the middle of the water column, hence the term “midwater.” In actuality, these trawlers often tow right on the bottom, and metal debris in midwater trawl nets has been officially documented by the federal observer program and reported in public fishery management meetings.
The size and power of this gear contrasts sharply with the groundfishermen’s traditional otter trawls. The primary reason that this type of gear disturbs me is the volume of fish that it is capable of catching within these closed area sanctuaries. The midwater trawl nets can catch hundreds of thousands of pounds of fish at a time. Groundfish bycatch in the herring trawl fishery has been documented in the closed areas, and it needs to stop now.
