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

More Than Bailed Out Banks



By now just about anything to do with the natural world needs to be considered in light of the unpredictable behavior of the brontosaurus in the room – global warming. That said, among the big items in the news for the Maine lobster fishery is the dramatic decline in Atlantic herring quota for 2019 and 2020. The two immediate effects will first be higher bait prices, reduced availability and the likely use of unfamiliar alternative baits. Second will be steep declines in revenue for the vessels that harvest the Atlantic herring. With quota cuts predicted to mean an 86% decline in revenue for these vessels, no one will need an MBA to extract catastrophe from a business plan with these numbers.

When herring was harvested in weirs, maintenance costs were near nil. Not so for the enormous steel machines with several engines, hydraulics, electrical and electronics systems that now harvest off shore.

NMFS scientists and managers now use more varied metrics in an attempt to more accurately assess the health of the herring stock. Their discussions of the state of the herring stock in the context of these overlapping data can sound like they are placing bets rather than settling on confirmed facts. Since they are working with data from samples taken from an ocean environment undergoing unprecedented change, that may be the best that can be expected. That is little consolation for the fishermen who are having these cuts explained in this ramped-up and more-complex managementese.

The more vulnerable appear to be the herring seiners. These are typically smaller than mid-water trawler vessels, and catch less with smaller nets and hold capacity. If it costs more to fish than fishing pays and maintenance costs continue while tied up at the wharf on a vessel not likely to be sold into any other regional fishery, again no one will need to hire an MBA to tell what that means.

Herring, in the Gulf of Maine and the North Sea, over centuries have been known, on occasion, to not be found for a time, for reasons that may or may not reflect overfishing, in the places fishermen usually found them, but soon they have reappeared. Global warming has without doubt impacted the world’s oceans and possibly more so the Gulf of Maine than any other.

When the herring come back these vessels will be needed to harvest them for the $500 million Maine lobster fishery. The Maine lobster industry needs these vessels more than it needed the banks the feds bailed out a decade ago.