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Hi Tim – thanks for your comments. Your observation about the habitat impacts of trawlers confirm the point I was making: in many multi-species fisheries there is a danger in designing the catch share program either for only one gear group, or such that one gear group gains an advantage over other, potentially less harmful gear types. That’s what’s happening here on the West Coast, where the fishery management plan would be amended to give trawling 90-95% of all groundfish.
I think it remains to be seen whether catch shares improve fisheries science. In Canada, one side effect has been that more data is being collected through the new observer program financed by the fishing industry, but that data has become inaccessible to all but a few government scientists, thus reducing the transparency and opportunities for outside research. The main benefit of catch shares is indeed, as you point out, to close the all-out fishing derbies – those, however, have been eliminated in many fisheries already through existing limited entry regimes such as trip limits. The price volatility does seem to go down in some fisheries, but of course prices are driven by many factors outside the fishing industry’s controls, so it’s not clear whether those effects can be attributed to catch shares. What we do know is that when there are as few controls on leasing and ownership, quota and lease prices can go up to a degree that make it not only cost-prohibitive for new fishermen to enter the fishery, but also change the operating economics of those fishermen who have to lease quota, in some cases leading to more accidents and injuries. Cheers, Astrid

It’s a lucid, well reasoned argument we still take issue with. For instance, Ms. Sholz speaks specifically of the Pacific Northwest. It’s uncertain her argument there is universally, or even generally applicable to the rest of the country. Her point about fish trips is dead on. The point about data access strikes us as a temporary wrinkle in government bureaucracy. As for the safety of the fishermen, she's also dead-on, no pun intended. In either case, it’s refreshing to hear another side to the story after the endless onslaught of righteous anger from ground fishermen and the only reporter in American giving them unlimited, unquestioned coverage.

You could argue passion has no place in journalism, but the Gloucester Times' vehemence regarding recent commercial fishing policy changes called catch shares actually produce a useful bit of reporting. The GT notes in this piece that one of the firms hired to enforce the policy is run by a former official in the offices spearheading it, NOAA. Give credit where credit is due. The Gloucester Times really nailed this story. This, after months of unabashedly biased reporting in favor of its readership on an issue which has regional, if not global significance. After reading so many articles by the paper on catch shares we were starting to believe the histrionics the editors there signed off on as objective journalism. Thankfully, this week we came across this Atlantic Monthly piece on catch shares which brought us back to our senses on this subject. This issue  is not as grotesquely one-sided as the GT would have you believe. This will also likely be the last we write on this subject for a while. So, let's state for posterity what we think will happen now that this policy is the law of the land.

When this Gloucester Times headline cited a UMASS scientist slamming catch shares, the pending overhual of fishing regulations known as catch share, it caught our attention. A serious scientist says catch shares are a bad idea? Well, not quite bad, but risky. Once again, you have to take the Gloucester Times with a grain of sea salt on this subject. But there is useful info here, if you can read past the histrionics. Before we dive into this issue, our one-paragraph preamble on catch shares. As of May 1, Atlantic fishermen are being allowed to catch “shares” of the 2010 federal commercial fish quota instead of past practice of being allowed to catch as much of that collective quota as individually possible. So, rich fishermen are expected to buy the most shares while others go broke, taking proud New England fishing traditions and communities with them.

There's no argument here on these issues and that's why the scientist says this new policy is risky. Once these diverse fishing fleets are consolidated into a few wealthy boats, the damage is done. There is no going back. The feds are taking such a hard line on catch shares because the North Atlantic's Georges Banks, shown above, are a globally vital marine ecosystem supporting a $812m commercial fishery that's suffered a decades-long decline with no relief.

We can't ban the trawling industry, nor should we. But consolidating all the smaller boats into a fleet of a few large boats will make for more effective regulation which is what this industry desperately needs. That is why the federal government is pushing ahead, despite growing local political pressure to do otherwise. There's not a scientist or a study in the world saying catch shares are bad for the environment. They all, like this scientist, say it's going to be very bad for the fishermen. Fishermen are not like easy-to-hate Wall Street fat cats. They are really cool people who scratch out a living doing what 99 percent of the world would be terrified to even contemplate. As damaging as groundfishing is to the ocean environment these people pull up some of the finest table far in the world. Fresh Atlantic halibut can take the Pepsi challenge with a prime New York strip steak anytime. Still, it would be nice to give the fish a break. No doubt the fishermen feel the same way after decades of federal regulations that have failed to stem the decline in George's Bank ground fish populations.

Contrary to how the Gloucester Times covers this story, there's no black and white here. It's all a shade of gray with powerful arguments on both sides. Yet, here's the scientist admitting at the outset of recent public hearing testimony that he's a “sounding board” for the Northeast Fishing industry. We think the Gloucester Times, which is widely quoted in other on-line publications and blogs, should make the same admission before its stories. One more thing. NBN has five bucks that says catch shares gets put on hold before the weekend. Any takers.

This Gloucester Times article on offshore fish farming is most interesting for the comments by commercial fishermen made at the bottom of the story. The piece details, with uncharacteristic objectivity, a federal effort to revive a fish farming plan that will focus on offshore installations. In quite characteristic, incomplete reporting, the GT does not mention how far offshore this policy seeks to place these fish farms. That info is crucial to the story comments which center around pollution issues and fears that farmed fish damage wild fish stocks. Both are problems plaguing salmon farming operations across the globe. Farmed salmon, which aren't as hardy as wild fish, tend to be kept in pens in calmer water close to shore. They often escape, occasionally in large numbers. The escapees then join the wild fish populations and the baby fish they produce aren't as strong as the wild fish. Sort of a reverse evolution. Pollution is another problem with fish farms because the farms have so many fish and use so much food to feed them that the surrounding water gets full of fish food and feces. It upsets the natural balance of things.

You can see how the fishermen would be opposed to this. What the fishermen complaining at the bottom of this story don't see is what could happen if these fish farms were put into the open ocean instead of the relatively shelters coves and bays they now occupy. We're talking 50 miles or more offshore. Out there you have to wonder if the pollution problem isn't much more diluted. In fact, way offshore the extra food and feces might actually be good for the environment because the deeper water tends to be starved of such nutrients while inshore waters tend to have too much from stormwater runoff. It's called nutrient loading. Also, will the weaker farm salmon, should they escape, be as likely to survive and mingle with wild fish populations if they are so far offshore?

These are just a few of the many questions far offshore aquaculture has to answer before it becomes a viable pursuit. But people are working on it and answers are out there. Caution: personal anecdote approaching. I did a story for the Boston Globe on folks building an offshore fish farm wave energy device. It was supposed to provide energy to far-offshore fish farms which employ automated feeding and cleaning systems. This wave energy device—shown here—looked like two 10-gallon hats welded at their brims. It was anchored last winter in a particularly wavy part of the Atlantic off northeast MA and that was the last I heard of it. I didn't hear the last of the people in the story, however. One fish farmer working on a grant for this project was pissed over the story. First because I got his last name wrong. Then because I had the audacity to discuss in the story the fish farm pollution problem. Fish farm pollution is the whole reason these people were conducting this work to begin with. He want's me to leave it out of the story?

Which brings us back to the GT story linked above. Not going into more detail on the offshore element of the story brings into question doing the story at all. Worse, the writer, in a digression that makes this story more unreadable than usual, goes into a completely unrelated critique of a very unpopular federal policy about to go into effect called catch shares. This side step goes beyond gratuitous and solicitous. It's blatant pandering to commercial fishing interests on an issue far too important to the entire country to skew your reporting to 5,000 or so local  readers. The GT's coverage of this issue is being picked up by publications every where and being reprinted as if it bore some resemblance to objective journalism. It's wrong and it's why we write so often about it here. The GT covers an area that specializes in the most destructive form of fishing in one of the world's richest ecosystems. Make no mistake, what happens in the Gulf of Maine affects a huge swath of the Atlantic Ocean. It's everybody's business.

The Gloucester Times once again takes liberties with realities in its never-ending campaign to prop up the antiquated groundfishing industry out of Gloucester. This time the paper says the president's plan to overhaul fishing regulation is “calculated to cull out a significant number of small boat businesses” fishing in Gloucester.

This is the government's take on the policy. They say it's to put more fish in the ocean. The article notes that Gloucester could lose half its fleet because that fleet specializes in groundfishing. Only passing reference is made to the overfishing this particular form of fishing is responsible for. The author's wholesale reliance on disgruntled fishermen for the facts in his piece coupled with his dismissal of the science driving these changes, is maddening. Probably just as maddening as the policy changes are to the fishermen who will lose their jobs, and who knows what all else, when the new policy goes into effect in 30 days.

What can you say here? Nobody wants to see fishermen lose their jobs. But groundfishing is a particularly destructive form of fishing. Changes have to be made. It would be easier to sympathize with the fishermen if they alone were the ones suffering here. Everybody is hurting. You don't see the Gloucester Times campaigning to protect the jobs of journalists being shown the door wholesale in newsrooms across the country. No doubt the fishermen, and by extension the Gloucester Times, would say the plight of the journalist is a reflection of market forces where the fishermen are being attacked by mean-spirited bureaucrats and scientists.

How about we do this instead: remove all the regulations. Then you'd have the fishermen, and by extension the Gloucester Times, screaming that they are being neglected by mean-spirited bureaucrats and scientists. The fact is, this country's past excesses are finally coming full circle with the growing limitations of our fast-shrinking planet. Whether it's global warming from coal fired power plants, draconian fishing regulations from over-fishing or the wholesale abandonment of newspaper by readers who don't want to fish through a dozens pages of copy to reach the story that interests them, powerful forces are thrusting unpleasant changes on us. Fighting them is not only stupid, but dangerous. These comments by an author plugging his book yesterday just begin to scratch the surface of what this nation needs to adjust. The fact is our standard of living has to change dramatically. We're not going to be driving bigger cars, we're not going to be eating these wonderful groundfish at $7 a pound any more, the price should be $20 to cover the ecological cost of catching them. The Gloucester Times is not going to spend $15,000 a day any more to bring you the one particular story you want to read which you can find for free on the internet. NBN has its own idea where this will all end: a leaner much more efficient world, where people work considerably fewer hours for a considerably smaller paycheck and still have a roof overhead and food on their plates. Just a different roof and different food. Splurging will no long be status quo. Where do you think this all ends? Can you imagine how many fish this market tosses into the trash every day?

In the absence of any news on pending federal commercial fishing policy revisions in the nation's Northeast called catch shares, the Gloucester Times decided to generate another non-story to advance its cause. (Newspaper reporters are supposed to inform, not argue, aren't they?) Anyway, here's GT reporter and commercial fishing advocate Richard Gaines' lead sentence on a story saying there's no news regarding the new fed fishing policy:
“The Obama administration's avowed plan to advance a fishing policy aimed at putting "a significant fraction" of the fishing captains in the northeast groundfishing fleet out of work is on track, according to testimony by captains.”

Outside of awful writing, this is flat wrong. That's is not to say the GT is gets it all wrong. In an earlier story also bemoaning the plight of commercial fishing in the face of the proposed catch share policy, the GT wrote this about the pending federal legislation:

It “gives fishermen catching rights and encourages the development of an investor-strengthened commodities market, but also has a track record in American and foreign fisheries of bringing about radical consolidation — fewer big businesses supplanting the large numbers of small boats that for centuries have made up the New England industry.”

The key difference? Groundfishing, which is the primary target of catch share policy, exploits and diminishes a resource that the health of the entire planet depends on. GM plant closings and the reverberations are felt on a far more limited range. Listen to the voiceover in the video above about groundfishing: “the destruction of an intricate mosaic of sealife.” Look at the net's scraping effect on the seafloor. What do you think? Is there long term damage being done here? All kinds of seaweed and small animals groundfish feed on are being scrapped into oblivion every time that net scourers the bottom. This links to the website with this chart at right showing the declining annual groundfish catch. The  website agrees with the GT, but it's worth reading because it puts some thought into its argument. The GT just grabs a bunch of loud quotes and twists them into deliberately misleading interpretations of arguably imperfect science and fumbling federal fish policy. However, the premise of this website is that complex regulations are sending fish catches down, not declining numbers of fish. That's kind of hard to buy for anyone who has taken rod and reel and headed out into the briny blue. There are no fish out there folks.

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We've got back-to-back headlines of politics outweighing science in two fishing communities on either side of an ocean that can ill-afford such indulgence: the Atlantic. First, New England's sea scallop fishermen marshalled plenty of political pull to kill a proposed 22 percent catch reduction for 2010. Is it safe to assume this reduction in the sea scallop catch was not originally proposed on a whim? The regulators, and the scientists behind them, gained nothing personally by proposing these cuts. On the contrary, the head of the agency seeking the scallop cut said the past few weeks have been the worst of his life. Yet, meetings with congressmen, governors and plenty of really angry fishermen got his regulatory agency to reconsider the reduction Not because science suggests otherwise, because "solid economic arguments" suggest otherwise. Here's a Boston Globe editorial that does a decent job discussing the issue.

Then, on the other side of the Atlantic, we have French president Nicolas Sarkozy seeking an 18 month postponement of a propose blue fin tuna ban. France has a huge blue fin tuna fleet. The US tuna fleet has been much more sensible protecting these fish, while the Europeans have gone hog wild. Accordingly, these fish stocks are dropping precipitously. Yet, the French president, like his New England colleagues, is letting political and economic expedience second guess precaution and science in hopes that something changes in the next 18 months. Such concern for fishermen who, at best make a very hard living, is understandable. But it's the lack of concern for the fish we all depend on that has caused fish stocks to plummet across the planet. If we don't take a stand now, when do we? Eighteen months from now?

The job requires training which is elaborated in the link above. Still, for Deadliest Catch fans it's got to sound pretty exciting. For those who don't mind being trapped on a boat full of men indifferent to death who hate you, its sounds like the perfect career.

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Once again the Gloucester Times abandons objectively to attack the messenger and ignore the message. This diatribe is worse than most that the paper publishes in the guise of information. It goes straight after the credibility of an official through the quotes of a lot of fishermen angry over her statements over dwindling fish populations. All taking place in a town far from Gloucester. Everyone knows winter in Gloucester can get a little sluggish, news-wise. But wasn't there a church function or school board meeting this reporter could have been assigned to instead of doing this story.  Why does the Gloucester Times continue to let this fellow continue to campaign for the fishermen in the guise of covering the commercial fishing beat objectively? Because it sells papers. Just look at all the comments. Keep 'em angry not informed.

Sadly, there's no simple answer and people's lives are going to be affected. In many cases proud family fishing traditions are going to turned into landscaping businesses. The paper just wants to prevent this. But is it doing its job just telling one side of the story?

The federal government wants to invite more input on how best to let US fishermen catch as many swordfish and giant tuna as possible without killing all sorts of other creatures that aren't quite as tasty, or valuable. These two fish, despite how much mercury may be dissolved into their muscles, can fetch over $10,000 a piece at dockside, even higher since sushi came on the scene. They are prized game, not to mention a ton of fun to catch. Not surprisingly stocks plummeted as European and US swordfish fishermen have gone after them with dollars bills blinding them to the turtles, dolphin and undersized fish killed in the process.

They didn't bring this up in Perfect Storm. Some 25,000 tons of sharks, rays and such are killed unintentionally by swordfishermen in Spain alone. The collateral damage got American federal fish folks passing laws to stop it and now US fishermen are taking in about half the number of fish those same regulators feels can be safely caught without sending stock plummeting again.

 What to do? That turtle above looks awful sad, however do we attend a funeral when the thing dies of natural causes? This is where environmental zeal can get in the way sound fisheries management. It also presupposes that man rules the planet and is thus ordained to kill these beautiful animals in the name of really fine seafood. For me it brings up the pangs of conscious I experienced when opening scallops. The cute little buggers with all those imploring blue eye, their shells helplessly clapping together in my hands shortly before my knife settles the issue. There's a lot to be said for vegetarians.

Speaking of overfishing, the Pew research institute released a study recently saying voters in Maine and Massachusetts are strongly opposed to overfishing by boats targeting groundfish like cod and haddock. Missing from the Pew study is how those same voters feel about cod and haddock crusted with Ritz crackers and baked in butter. I know I've railed about the damage these bottom fishing boats can cause, what bothers me about the Pew folks is they only present one side of the story. FYI Obama's EPA head, Lisa Jackson, is a former Pew official, actually when she was there it was the National Environmental Trust. Needless to say commercial fishermen were not thrilled with the appointment. Perhaps the extra input the feds are seeking will solve this.

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