F R O M   T H E   C R O W E ’ S   N E S T

A Fixed Fight



The Maine lobster industry has a lot to be upbeat about as the fishing season winds down. Lobster catch numbers have been good. The boat price has been recovering from historic relative lows and the international oil cartels haven’t yet re-inflated the price of fuel. The shoreside businesses that rely on the lobster industry are likewise in good spirits.

At the same time, New England ground fishermen, battered by decades of declining access and profitability, have been forced to sue the federal fisheries management system that many in the industry see as the leading cause of a lot of its problems—most recently, the unprecedented imposition of the high costs of at-sea observer coverage on struggling fishing businesses. Likewise, ground fishermen are filing suit against federal managers over the catch shares program that is driving them out of business. Most of the federal management schemes over the last 40 years have been attempts, federal managers claimed, to restore fish stocks. Most have been ineffective—including the out-of-control protected dogfish populations that ravish groundfish spawn. Some stocks, like haddock, have recovered in spite of federal actions. Meanwhile, scientists in Newfoundland are declaring an unprecedented rebound in the cod stocks there.

What makes the U.S. federal fisheries agency so wrong so often, and so inexplicably off the wall? What makes the management of the Maine lobster fishery, in the same body of water, so successful? The Maine lobster fishery is in part managed by owner-operators engaged in the oversight of their resource. Its scientists are engaged in the scientific method, rather than political science. Maine grows lobster markets to buoy prices, while fed policies drive groundfish profits down. The Maine DMR is not being driven by the endless lawsuits that so influence and mutilate federal fisheries policy. These are a few of the reasons.

Ground fishermen have to sue the feds. They have not had a fighting chance against the lawyers for well-funded private interests that are forcing their will on public fisheries policy.

Groundfish fishermen, battered for decades by councils driven by these lawyers, in what might have been the last mismatched round of this fight, have finally called for a legal challenger to step into the ring. All fishermen are in the same corner in a fixed fight.