Pair Trawlers Leave New England

[CaptainAlex]

http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/...cid=sitesearch

Norpel closes its doors ... says it can no longer operate under such heavy regulations ...

[amarshall]

One one hand, that's the best piece of news we've had in awhile.

On the other hand, as a someone in the seafood business it sucks.

[HarborRd]

To me this quote says a bunch. If the reason you are shutting down is because of bycatch quota allocations, and not anything to do directly with your target species, that says something about your operation.

"Despite the abundance of haddock at sea, the herring fleet was restricted by the fishery management council to just .02 percent of the total allowable haddock catch, or 86 tons — a severe reduction from the full 2 percent they had formerly been permitted. The Standard-Times reported in January that NORPEL appealed to the governor for emergency action after foreseeing the crisis."

[happytuna]

yes it good news for a lot of fishermen it will help the ground fish ,stripers and tuna as there will be more bait around.they need to go back to seining for herring so it would'nt take all of the schooland not rape the bottom of ground fish

[twofinbluna]

This is not happening because of issues with haddock or the state of the seafood business, this has to do with the fact that 150 foot pair trawlers fishing hard in the late nineties and 2000s did a number to the herring and mackerel stocks, and as a result they can no longer run wild like they did when they first showed up. And make no mistake about it- this has as much to do with mackerel as has to do with herring. These boats hit the macks hard when they first showed up and they have not been able to catch any in years- a critical blow to their operations. NORPEL is not going to survive on herring, they needed macks.

And keep in mind that while haddock bycatch may have been one of the final nails in the coffin, these boats were only allowed in to groundfish areas because they convinced people somehow that they had no interactions with groundfish- only to then turn around and start begging for a haddock bycatch cap, then a few years after that to have that cap made much larger since they were unable to fish without catching haddock!

And no doubt part of the blame goes to NOAA and its scientists for promoting the massive buildup of the pair trawl fleet based on faulty science. While the science has since been shown to be wrong, it was too late. They should have never encouraged these boats to come here- what a mistake that was. And a result not only these people lost out in the end, but so did all of the rest of us who saw our fisheries disrupted by the pair trawlers.

Hopefully New Bedford will find a good use for that plant and will put any workers who lost their jobs back to work.

And keep in mind there are still a number of massive pair trawlers from MA and ME that are still around, NORPEL only had a couple boats.

[LurkerCharters]

This is great news! Shut em all down, pair trawling is dirty business and it is a prime example of how technology can destroy a fishery. I have no sympathy for NORPEL.

[chumtini]

New Bedford, the city of lights...and turbine windmills

[SaltyDog]

They have been a great bait supply place for me.. I was up there 2 weeks ago and got 400lbs of frozen herring for $100. Too bad.

[iguana1]

Good bye and good riddance! I just feel bad for the fisherman on the west coast where these guys will go to lay waste to some other fishery by raping the public resource. 5M across 120 employees - those weren't very good jobs at 40k all in average - a fraction of the sustainable commercial and charter fisheries they were destroying!

As an aside, I just read the book Menhaden about Omega Protein destroying the pogy fishery, same whining from Omega's management.

[twofinbluna]

And I would love to see some proof that there were actually 120 people being employed there...