New England's groundfish stocks are showing signs of fragile recovery after decades of over-fishing.
But the strict federal rules behind that recovery have forced many fishermen out of business in ports from Maine to Rhode Island.
And fishermen are starting to agree - the only way to salvage their way of life is to radically change the way they do business.
As NHPR Correspondent Shannon Mullen reports, one fishing community in Massachusetts is taking the lead.
Fishing boats in Chatham's Stage Harbor. (Courtesy tedkerwin)
[AMBI: seagulls, dock sounds]
MULLEN: At Stage Harbor in Chatham Massachusetts, a seafood dealer loads fisherman Ryan Tolley’s latest catch onto a truck bound for New York.
[ambi: more dock sounds]
Tolley runs his father’s gill-net commercial fishing boat – they catch mostly cod.
In his late 20s, Tolley’s part of the New England’s next generation of commercial fishermen.
But they’re not even sure there’s a future in fishing.
TOLLEY: Used to be a good living. Used to be able to make a lot of money. You know it seems like over the last few years we’ve worked harder and harder to make the same amount of money.
MULLEN: Things are getting better, he says, since he and his dad joined a relatively new kind of fishing co-op last year.
That freed them from some of the strict federal rules against over-fishing.
TOLLEY: Now we can go catch what we can catch, keep what we catch, and so for now it’s gonna let me continue to fish and make a living.
MULLEN: Most other fishermen are still managed by those federal rules designed to protect fishing stocks.
Those regulations dictate how many days captains can go to sea and how big a catch they can bring back to port.
If they accidentally catch more than they’re allowed, they have to throw it back…dead or alive.
The co-op the Tolleys joined is called a “sector”.
And the system guarantees each member gets a percentage of the group’s fish quota.
And in a sector the members decide when to make trips, and how many fish they’ll keep, as long as they stay within their quota.
KURKEL: It’s a completely different approach to management .
MULLEN: Pat Kurkel is with the National Marine Fisheries Service – which has to approve any changes to the region’s fishery management rules.
The agency signed off on Chatham’s first sector in 2004, and a second one last year.
Kurkel says regulators support letting fishermen manage themselves in sectors, even though it’s like putting the foxes back in charge of the henhouse.
KURKEL: It’s a when, not an if. It seems to be the direction everyone wants to be taking, trying to get to a place where everybody’s doing what they do best – so it allows fisheries managers to concentrate on the conservation issues, and the industry to run their businesses.
BRAZER: All of this in the end is going to help bring the fish stocks back quicker, and it’s going to put more money in the Fishermen’s pockets.
MULLEN: Eric Brazer manages the Chatham sectors for their members.
BRAZER: Fishermen are finally either realizing or getting fed up to the point where they can actually manage themselves. They’re willing to focus all their efforts on making positive change, and not just whining, complaining about doom and gloom, and we’re all going out of business…
MULLEN: Sector members have to report to Brazer when they go fishing…
And when they get back they have 2 days to report what they caught, compared to non-co-op fishermen, who get a month.
BRAZER: With a well-managed quota system, you know exactly how many fish you’re taking out of the ocean, and once you reach that point, you stop.
MULLEN: Brazer says so far no one’s tried to cheat.
Rule-breakers face stiff fines, and if they get kicked out of the sector they can’t fish anywhere for the rest of that year.
In Alaska, British Columbia, New Zealand, similar quota systems helped bring back fish stocks that were in worse shape than New England’s.
But fishermen here say things are still bad enough that sectors might not save them. FOOTER: They only have so much fish to give out in a sector, and there’s only so much bottom that these boats are physically able to go out and fish on.
MULLEN: Jim Footer is one Chatham fisherman who has no plans to join a sector,
because there’s no guarantee the fish would take his bait if he did.
Last year the more productive of Chatham’s two sectors caught only half of its quota.
FOOTER: When you’re looking at the fees to get in, and the fees on what you catch, there’s, you know, a solid chance that with the increased competition inside the sector you might not make your money.
MULLEN: Right now members make an initial payment of 10-thousand dollars toward the cost of managing the sector.
On top of that, they’re required to contribute the value of 5-percent their annual catch.
Sector manager Eric Brazer says the co-op’s start-up costs will come down as sectors catch on.
Already the Fisheries Service is considering 17 applications to form new ones around New England including New Hampshire.
That amounts to most of the fishermen left in the industry – who see sectors as a way to both profit from the resource now and protect it for the future.
For NHPR News, I’m SM.
