A group of New England groundfishermen had done many things to ban industrial herring trawlers from closed fishing grounds but in vain. Now they have decided to move to court and sue the herring trawlers against entering closed areas. According to the Midcoast Fishermen’s Association there’s mounting evidence that herring ships are inadvertantly catching haddock and other groundifsh species in their nets and it’s “troubled by agency inaction” on the issue.
Association chair Glen Libby, a commercial fisherman, informed that the current rules are undermining our hard work. He also said that if the region’s groundfish populations are ever going to recover, they need to fix this problem. And it looks like the only way to do it is through the courtroom.
In 1994, the so-called “midwater” herring trawlers were banned from areas closed to groundfishing, but regulators decided four years later to reopen them to trawlers on the premise that they would not pose a threat to groundfish. Commenting on this trawler operators acknowledge that they have inadvertantly netted haddock in the past, but they say those instances were rare and the result of unusual circumstances. The Association demand that the big ships should not be allowed to fish in spawning grounds and sanctuaries for cod, haddock, and other groundfish stocks that currently off-limits to nearly all other fishing vessels.
