>>Fishermen's Voice Monthly Newspaper, Gouldsboro Maine

“While it’s legal for the Midwater trawler fishery to land this haddock as bycatch, the groundfish fishermen in Port Clyde feel it is a slap in the face that thousands of pounds of haddock were wasted”

—Wesley Dean,
Maine Marine Patrol

Lobstermen up and down the coast of Maine this month reported finding large amounts of haddock mixed in their herring bait. The haddock, caught as bycatch by industrial midwater trawl ships fishing for herring on Georges Bank, was the most seen mixed in with lobster bait to date this year. “Many of the fishermen filleted up the haddock and gave it to friends and neighbors rather than use it for lobster bait,” said Gary Libby, a lobsterman and groundfisherman from Port Clyde, Maine.

Maine Marine Patrol Officer Wesley Dean happened to be in the area and witnessed the October 4 incident in Port Clyde. “The bait delivery truck that I witnessed in Port Clyde was believed to be filled right from the midwater trawler boats in Gloucester,” said Dean. Roughly 35,000 pounds of herring will support 24 lobstermen from Port Clyde for a week. It takes millions of pounds of herring to supply the entire coast of Maine with bait for the lobster fishery. “I witnessed about 1,000 lbs. of adult haddock being off-loaded from only this one truck that holds 35,000 pounds of herring,” continued Dean. Days-at-sea management tightly regulates the groundfish fishery and those fishermen feel they are paying dearly with these measures to restore the stocks. “While it’s legal for the Midwater trawler fishery to land this haddock as bycatch, the groundfish fishermen in Port Clyde feel it is a slap in the face that thousands of pounds of haddock were wasted,” concluded Dean.

The region’s groundfish fishermen called for action. Glen Libby, Chairman of Midcoast Fishermen’s Association wrote to George Lapointe of the Maine Department of Marine Resources asking that something be done. “Imagine a similar situation where lobsters were ‘accidentally’ caught, landed and given away by Maine groundfish boats. I doubt that this would be well received by lobster fishermen. There are laws that protect the lobster fishery from this type of action,” said Libby. “Maine groundfishermen have been struggling for years to rebuild our stocks under the failed DAS system. While haddock has been a success the remaining stocks have not had that same fortune and we may be faced with massive cuts in effort for 2009 to address these stocks of concern,” concluded Libby.

One success touted in the recent Groundfish Stock Assess- ment by the Northeast Fisheries Science Center is that haddock stocks have been rebuilt, but on the backs of New England’s groundfishermen. Fisherman Craig Pendleton stated, “We have sacrificed for two decades to rebuild the haddock and now the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is letting midwater trawlers slaughter haddock right in front of our eyes.” Pendleton, one of Maine’s most recent casualties from New England’s struggling groundfish fishery has both his boat and fishing permit for sale on the market.

“It’s about time that the groundfish industry is afforded the same protections that have worked so well for our lobster industry,” said lobsterman Gary Libby. “The midwater trawl bycatch problem needs to be fixed and fixed now.”

Paul Parker of the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen’s Association, whose fishermen have recently witnessed midwater trawlers fishing in area CA1 a closed groundfish area off Cape Cod, had similar sentiments. “The herring monitoring system is failing. Nobody has any idea how much haddock, striped bass, or anything else that is being discarded by these ships. This is unacceptable and needs to be corrected immediately. I have every confidence that if this fleet tried to avoid haddock that they could get the job done. They just don’t have an incentive to do so. The name of the game is accountability.”

Frank O’Hara Sr. of O’Hara Corporation in Rockland, Maine, and owner of several herring fishing boats, “We heard rumors of some bycatch of haddock from the herring boats that were out fishing on Georges Bank, but our boats weren’t out there yet.” O’Hara’s boats fish for herring inshore of the Gulf of Maine, in area 1A, June through September, with purse seining gear and then are refitted with midwater trawling gear to fish offshore in the fall. “We did recently buy some herring for bait from the boats that were fishing off Georges Bank and it did have some small amounts of haddock, but nothing like an incident of juvenile haddock bycatch that happened a few years back. We don’t run into haddock when we are fishing inshore with purse seining gear, only on Georges and that hasn’t been a problem for a few years. Our boats are just getting out to fish on Georges now and we will know shortly if haddock are a problem,” concluded O’Hara Sr.

Currently the Midcoast Fisher- men’s Association (MFA) is in federal court challenging the rules that allow industrial trawlers to fish in ‘groundfish closed areas’, which are spawning grounds closed to other vessels capable of catching groundfish. These areas have been identified as vital to restoring depleted groundfish stocks. Recent haddock bycatch incidents were reported to have taken place in a ‘groundfish closed area’ off Cape Cod. “There may be rules in place that allow some haddock to be landed legally as bycatch,” said Roger Fleming an Earthjustice attorney representing the MFA in its federal court challenge. “However, even under the outdated closed area rules there are specific provisions that should lead to restrictions or possible closures of the fishery when the rates of bycatch, like the ones reported by Officer Dean, are reached. And more generally, there are serious questions as to whether NMFS is currently meeting its legal mandate to monitor the herring fishery and minimize bycatch,” concluded Fleming.

The New England Fishery Management Council is currently developing Amendment 4 for herring and working to implement more robust monitoring into this fishery. Peter Baker, Director of the Herring Alliance, said, “We’ve been calling for an adequate monitoring system for the herring fishery for years. Maybe these incidents will finally get the process moving.”