The consensus of last week’s meeting was two-fold: more research is essential in order to determine where spawning stocks are so they aren’t wiped out; and something needs to be done about midwater trawlers.

Area 1A is routinely fished out the fastest of the four management areas.

Klyver said he has seen a drastic difference in his 14 years leading whale watch trips around an 800-square-mile area.

Especially over the last three years, he said, there has been a dramatic decrease in the number of bluefin tuna, which are one of the interesting sights to see as they surface-feed and lunge for herring.

“It’s dropped tremendously,” Klyver said. “If you’re missing these large pelagic species, something’s wrong.”

Likewise, feeding whales are a far less-common sight these days, he said.

“When we do see fish, we see the trawls hit them really hard,” he said. “And then there’s an absence of life.…so I think there’s a connection.”

John Williamson, NEFMC member said he and other council members are looking to the definition of habitat to help the herring situation. Photo Fishermen's Voice.

Klyver stressed the point of the meeting was not to foment opposition to trawlers, but simply to come up with a common vision for the future.
In a letter to NMFS regional administrator Pat Kurkul, Klyver and other naturalists with the Bar Harbor Whalewatch Co. asked NMFS to reduce the quota for Atlantic herring in Area 1A by 33 percent, to 40,000 metric tons.

Klyver cited scientific uncertainty in biomass estimates and the amount of fishing effort that would be sustainable, combined with the predominance of midwater and pair trawl gear and its capacity and efficiency to take whole “assemblages” of herring.

Klyver also cited specific instances that, he said, indicated a marked decrease of herring.

Sometimes our search efforts for whales take us fifty miles up the coast or down the coast. During recent years (especially during the last two) years, we have witnessed a marked decrease of fish school abundance on our fish-finders and fish schools on the surface of the ocean. Through direct communication with fishermen and whale watch companies up and down the coast of Maine, we have found that this is a common story.”

There has also been a concurrent decrease in the abundance of large whales, he said.

“During the two previous years, we have observed a dramatic drop in the abundance of large baleen whales, specifically humpback, finback, and minke whales,” he wrote. “We have also seen a decrease in their site tenacity and observable-feeding behaviour throughout our coverage area. This is a shift from the mid and late 1990s, when we were able to witness almost daily displays of surface feeding on herring including bubble cloud feeding, lunge feeding, and cooperative lunge feeding. During the last two years we have seen virtually none. While we have observed whales feeding on krill, the abundant schools of herring have not been visible.”

Gear Conflict or Vanishing Resource?
Council member Dana Rice characterized the problem as a resource, not gear conflict, issue. Area 1A played an essential role in the recovery of the resource after it was wiped out by foreign fishing in the 1970s. Any new problems with Area 1A, he said, will mean problems for the entire stock.

Ted Ames of Stonington said over the past year, for the first time, there were no britt, or minute marine organisms, including herring, around the docks, where they usually teem.

John Stanley, of Pretty Marsh, said he’s been setting weirs since 1964 and still has eight dories. Last year, he and his crew caught nothing.

“We’re just not seeing anything worthwhile,” he said. “We’re basically waiting for another collapsed-stock assessment.”

Rice said he also would like to see trawling stopped in Area 1A. If spawning stock is wiped out, he said, herring will never come back.

Area 1A, he said, is “a disaster waiting to happen . . . and there’s no doubt in my mind that midwater trawls are going to kill the whole fishery.”

According to council member John Williamson, the scientists see only the consistency of removal levels; who catches the herring doesn’t matter to many. Processors, he said, are also predisposed to industrial-style fishing because it gets the product to them in large, predictable batches.

Williamson said he and other council members are looking to the definition of habitat to help the situation; prey species may be defined as habitat.

Ames noted there are more midwater trawls today than there were at the peak of foreign fishing in the 1970s.

“Apparently it’s okay for us to wipe out [herring] and not for the foreign fleet,” he said.