allowed them to fish in the closed areas on Georges Bank. Based on data from eight observed trips, with a threshold of five percent bycatch, the mid-water trawl gear was deemed “incapable of catching groundfish.” The tolerance level for groundfish landings, however, remained zero. Not one haddock could be landed legally.
  In a press release from August 17, 2004, Mary Beth Tooley, a spokesperson for the East Coast Pelagic Association, which represents the O’Hara pair trawlers, said that evidence of groundfish bycatch from Georges Bank began to appear in July, when “a small percentage of juvenile haddock began to show up in the catch.”
  Tooley said that the “baby boom” 2003 year class of juvenile haddock mixing with herring made it difficult for the mid-water herring boats fishing on Georges Bank to avoid bycatch. A total of seven vessels from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine have come under investigation for landing haddock, and other regulated species. According to Tooley, four boats “yielded insignificant haddock bycatch of .12 - .02%.”
  To get away from haddock, the mid-water boats “agreed to stay off the grounds for two weeks to evaluate the problem in a pro-active manner with state and federal agencies,” said Tooley.
  Nonetheless, the revelation of up to 4.5 percent juvenile haddock bycatch, in a fishery where boats can land over one million pounds per trip, has put the purportedly clean mid-water herring fleet on the ropes. The controversial gear sector’s opponents are lining up to take their best shots.
  “Right now, they are trying to hide the full extent of their bycatch problem until they can get a plan together to address it,” said Peter Baker, chairman of the CHOIR Coalition (the Coalition for the Atlantic Herring Fishery’s Orderly, Informed, and Responsible Long-Term Development). Baker noted that at an August 20th meeting of the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) herring advisory panel, which began at 10:00 AM, chairman Dave Ellenton told enforcement agents they would have to wait until 5:00 PM to report on the bycatch issue.
  Glenn Robbins, owner of the purse seine/mid-water boat, Western Sea, drew fire at that same meeting when he said, “The mid-water boats are starting to show their true colors now, in that they can’t hide their groundfish so well.” Robbins claimed that the bycatch problem has been with the mid-water industry since it started. “Nobody wanted to believe it, but it has,” he said. He predicted that the mid-water boats would be forced to switch to purse seining in the summer. “The winter fishery, I have no problem with it,” said Robbins. “Most guys in winter don’t seem to catch the groundfish they do in the summer, or have as many interactions with marine mammals.”
  Much was revealed in the flurry of comments that followed Robbins’s accusations. Jim Kendall, director of the New Bedford Seafood Coalition, fired back that the two New Bedford boats he represented had remained tied to the dock for three months, in order to avoid groundfish. “That was a very expensive decision,” he said. Others countered Robbins’s comments with the assertion that all sectors of the fishing industry had bycatch issues and needed to work together. But Rich Ruais, executive director of the East Coast Tuna Association, pointed out that most sectors of the fishing industry had already been forced to deal with bycatch issues. “That’s not the case with mid-water trawl gear,” he said. “It has a blanket exemption to fish inside the closed areas and other areas where groundfish are being protected.”
  Ruais stated flatly that the issue was beyond the stage of innuendo, as one mid-water trawl advocate had hollered while Robbins spoke. “These are verified marine patrol statistics,” he said. “This is a crisis, and the council needs to take emergency action.”

The Sunlight a 108' pair trawler with the capacity of over 800,000 pounds. The revelation of up to 4.5 percent juvenile haddock bycatch, in a fishery where boats can land over one million pounds per trip, has put the purportedly clean mid-water herring fleet on the ropes. Paul Molyneaux Photo

Tackling the Problem
  Ruais later called for a ban on mid-water trawl gear, or at least limits on where and when it can be used. “Maybe this gear can’t be used in summer, when the haddock are mixed with the herring. Maybe it can’t be used inshore,” he said, suggesting that the council codify some version of the time area closures that much of the herring fleet has imposed on itself. “At the very least, they need to be taken out of the closed areas until we can get 100 percent observer coverage,” said Ruais.
  According to Kohl Kanwit, a DMR biologist and member of the New England Fishery management Council (NEFMC) herring technical committee, existing data justifies the exemption. “But that’s not saying the data is sufficient. We need more. Obviously this situation is not something we can live with.” But based on her observations and literature from other countries, Kanwit believes mid-water trawling should not be banned. “The reality is, compared to what’s going on out there, this is an exceptionally clean fishery, if done responsibly.”
  Ruais pointed out, however, that unlike other fishery management plans (FMPs), the plan that regulated mid-water boats did not take into account the gear’s capacity for taking groundfish. He called for the mid-water industry to “get with the program,” but lamented what he characterized as state and federal agencies “falling all over themselves trying to apologize for this industry.”
  According to Maine DMR commissioner George Lapointe, the important facts are out in the open. “It did happen,” said Lapointe, referring to the groundfish bycatch. “Clearly it’s not anything anybody wants to live with. We need to talk about it — what it means to the herring fishery and the groundfish resource.”
  The short-term solution to the bycatch problem may be simply to wait, according to Dr. William Overholtz, of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole. “By October, these age 0 haddock should separate out from the herring, and the situation will resolve itself,” he said. But he and many others have warned that as groundfish rebound, the bycatch problem will increase for all fisheries. “This is just the beginning,” said Commissioner Lapointe. “Haddock stocks are predicted to increase eightfold in the next two years. We may have to look at bycatch tolerance levels,” he said, alluding to the possibility of allowing a certain amount of bycatch in the herring fishery,
  “That’s what they do on the West Coast,” said Tooley. “But that is not the only option.” Raising the tolerance levels from zero may be the simplest solution to the groundfish bycatch issue, but the idea is anathema to groundfish fishermen. “We are sacrificing what is projected to become a $400 million dollar groundfish fishery, for the sake of a $20 million dollar herring fishery,” said the CHOIR’s Peter Baker.
  According to Lori Steele, a fisheries analyst for the NEFMC, Amendment 1 to the herring plan will address the bycatch issue. Steele said that both time area closures and bycatch allowance were among the options, but added that more information about the status of the haddock stock and the level of bycatch would be needed before any informed discussions could take place.

Marine Mammals
  Several Maine boats have avoided groundfish by moving into the coastal waters of Area 1A. Pair trawlers fished as close as three miles from shore, and encountered new problems. Federal scientists have warned that the resource in Area 1A is fully exploited, possibly over-exploited, and any additional effort in the fishery should be in the offshore areas 2 and 3.
  Mary Beth Tooley acknowledged that the limited quota in Area 1A would not be enough to keep the mid-water boats going, or supply the lobster industry with herring for bait.
  In addition to those concerns, came the problem of mid-water trawl interaction with marine mammals. Under the Marine Mammal Authorization Program (MMAP), all commercial fisheries are placed in categories based on the frequency of incidental injuries and mortalities to marine mammals. Mid-water trawling for mackerel is considered a Category I fishery, “with frequent serious injuries and mortalities [to marine mammals].” When targeting herring, mid-water trawling is a Category II fishery, “with occasional serious injury and mortalities [to marine mammals].” Boats in both categories must register with MMAP.
  Purse seining, by comparison, is a Category III fishery, “with a remote likelihood or no known serious injuries or mortalities [to marine mammals].” The odds of encountering many types of marine mammals, such as seals and harbor porpoises are much higher near shore, and while all the above fisheries can legally take marine mammals incidental to fishing, the Category I and II fisheries appear to have a greater chance of incidental takes as they approach the shore.
  “The whales go right through the mesh if they’re big enough,” said one former mid-water trawl crewman who had fished near Mount Desert Rock. “The seals are the problem. They plug up the pump.” He said he had seen some seals escape out of mid-water nets but that most died.
  Like almost everyone else looking at the herring industry right now, the crewman suggested more observer coverage.

Observers
  While observer coverage was scant from 1994 to 2002 — a mere 28 trips — it increased 625 percent in 2003, though it still only covered 7.7 percent of the herring fishery. According to Dr. William Overholtz, 20 percent coverage would be statistically significant — enough to get a handle on what is going on in the fishery. “One hundred percent coverage would be a waste of time and money,” he said.
  Commissioner Lapointe believes that only 100 percent coverage will answer the questions that have arisen about the interaction of mid-water trawlers and pair trawlers with other fish species and marine mammals.
  According to Kohl Kanwit, NMFS recently funded an additional 300 observer days, which should bring coverage to between 10 and15 percent.
  Lapointe believes that, faced with a shortage of funding and trained observers, the solution could come from dockside monitoring. “These vessels land at half a dozen ports in New England,” said Lapointe. “That’s where we need to look.” He suggested that enforcement agencies from NMFS and other states get together and agree on how to monitor landings. “We could make it so that a boat couldn’t offload until someone was there to sub-sample the catch. That would give us a pretty good idea of what’s going on in terms of bycatch of juvenile fish.”
  Mary Beth Tooley expressed the mid-water trawl fleet’s interest in better coverage. “It would benefit us,” she said. “People are saying so much about us. We need the facts.”
  Commissioner Lapointe called for more observer coverage. “Let’s chase the facts,” he said, “and be ready to admit it if we need to make big changes.”