FIX-UP FOR A FRIG-UP from page 1                               June 2007  
“The devil is in the details.” —Terry Stockwell. With the translation of the MSA pending, how to proceed on MSA, the budget up in the air, consolidation looming, the threat to local control from the industrial fleet palpable, uncharted waters comes to mind. Knowing there may be nothing to manage after a sweep by the big boats, local control advocates are scrambling to stake a claim. Photo: Laurie Schreiber
However, since 1999, there has been considerable growth in fishing effort and landings by GC vessels, due to resource recovery and higher scallop prices.

“Without additional controls on the general category fishery, there is a great deal of uncertainty with respect to potential fishing mortality from this component of the scallop fishery, thus the potential for overfishing is increased,” the public hearing document says.

To control capacity and mortality, NEFMC is considering limited entry and hard total allowable catch alternatives. If limited entry is selected, there are a number of qualification criteria based on time periods and landings history. Along with specific limited-entry permit provisions

A11 also contains measures that could affect existing limited access scallop vessels, including alternatives that would permit limited access boats to fish under GC, and allocations of the total catch to LA and GC boats.

NEFMC favors limited entry and an allocation of five percent of the fishery’s total allowable catch for GC boats. The five percent figure is based on a calculation of average landings, since 1994, of GC boats compared with LA boats. LA vessels land the majority of scallops. For example, in 1994, GC boats land three-fifths of a percent of the total harvest, and limited access boats landed 99 percent. In 2005, GC boats landed 14 percent, and LA boats landed 86 percent.

About 325 LA vessels are active. This compares with the 600-plus active GC boats, although there are close to 3,000 GC permits. Active GC boats have come to rely increasingly on scallops, especially in the mid-Atlantic.

NEFMC’s preferred limited-entry qualifiers would require that a boat must have had a permit between March 1, 1994 and Nov. 1, 2004, and must have landed at least 1,000 pounds in one year during that period. Qualifying boats would get an individual amount of quota in pounds or number of trips.

The problem for Maine fishermen is that the nearshore fishery accessible to the state’s traditional small-boat fleet has basically collapsed. Preferable to many Maine fishermen is another alternative that would establish a Northern Gulf of Maine scallop management area that would recognize the state’s historical fishing fleet and preserve its right to fish once stocks have rebounded. Under this alternative, NEFMC proposes establishing a limited entry GC program, with reduced fishing of 200 pounds per trip and the entire area under a hard TAC.

But fishermen this week said A11 will only cut out small boats, and the large mid-Atlantic boats will get all the permits.
  
“It’s appalling what’s going on,” Hatch said. “The size of this document and the amount of work put into it – I guess it shows why the council is failing in all the fisheries.”

Sheryl Harper of Southwest Harbor comments on a complicated suite of alternatives in Amendment 11 to the scallop management plan. Looking on are New England Fishery Management Council member Dana Rice (l) and the Department of Marine Resources’ Terry Stockwell (r) Harper holds one of the few limited access permits in Maine. Photo: Laurie Schreiber
Hatch and others said NMFS has no understanding of the Down East component of the GC fishery and its importance to the coastal economy. “Basically, you’re cutting out a fishery out that you don’t even know is supposed to be there,” Hatch said.

“The northern Gulf of Maine area makes all kinds of sense,” said Ted Ames of Stonington. “We do fish differently and we deal with our fisheries differently as well.”

Bill Anderson of Trescott said he questions the idea of allowing LA boats to participate in the GC fishery.

“I always assumed general category was set up for small boats,” Anderson said.

Under the alternatives, only a few hundred would qualify for scallops, said Ames. “It’s almost an insult,” he said. “Who’s going to get a couple of hundred permits? This is ridiculous – a couple of hundred pounds. This is the kiss of death.”

Ames said the 400-pound figure was established in the early 1990s specifically for Maine’s multi-fishery way of life, not as an uppermost limit but as the least that Maine boats should be able to fish for. The 400 pounds was never intended to be used by any boats other than Maine’s small-boat fishery, Ames said.

Ames also panned the five percent share. The GC fleet should have at least 50 percent of the scallops, he said.

Ames said he supports northern GOM area and maintaining the 400 pounds per day.

“Give people a chance,” he said.

Fishermen agreed Maine’s scallop stocks are n ot what they once were. This is partly due, they said, to big boats coming from Massachusetts and dragging the Maine coast; Maine’s colder water means its takes longer for stocks to rebound. And they agreed capacity and mortality controls are needed.

Sargent said making the fishery owner-operator would take care of overcapacity problems. “There hasn’t been an owner-operator fishery I’ve ever known that’s been overfished,” he said. “If anyone should be eliminated, it should be limited access boats,” said Mike Dassett of Belfast. “I don’t feel general category goats are going to benefit at all from Amendment 11. It’s just another fix-up for a frig-up.”

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