It is fact that commercial fishermen are facing grave difficulties as the new regulations bowed down the fishing industry. Jason Jarvis of Westerly has been lobstering several years ago and even bought a license, only to be told he couldn’t legally fish for lobsters. Then he went after monkfish, but the state quotas for daily catches were so low he worried he could lose his house this spring and end up homeless if fishing doesn’t pick up.
Terrence Mulvey’s voice broke as he described the hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines he paid before losing his federal fishing license. These commercial fishermen were among about a dozen fishermen who testified Monday before a Senate oversight group reviewing fisheries management in Rhode Island. Regulators are alleged of mismanagement and callous attitudes.
They are not happy the way the state has privatized its lobster fishery, set limits in recent years on monkfish and cod catches, and changed the way it regulates summer flounder catches. The DEM’s Bob Ballou said the agency is making plans for rules that would allow fishermen to buy lobster-trap allocations from fishermen who were awarded the permits several years ago.
It is told that the allowable catch for monkfish will soon go up dramatically (from 50 pounds to 550 pounds of tail weight). New schemes are being tried to set quotas for summer flounder. Two Senate committees, Environment and Agriculture, chaired by V. Susan Sosnowski, D-South Kingstown; and Government Oversight, chaired by J. Michael Lenihan, D-East Greenwich, held meetings in the last two weeks to review the DEM’s work in managing commercial fishing in Rhode Island.
Senator Lenihan said he was concerned about regulatory decisions that affect peoples’ “lives and occupations” being based on assessments of fish populations that may not be reliable. It is opined that the National Marine Fisheries Service has been exceptionally conservative in estimating biomass. It is alleged that the state has stopped supporting a state seafood council and other economic development measures for fishermen and focused its efforts solely on regulations.
