Fishing
Vineyard commercial fishermen scored a key win in the struggle keep them from being squeezed out of the groundfish industry yesterday when the New England Fishery Management Council voted to adopt the sector system, granting the Vineyard its own sector.
The vote came after three days of meeting in Portland, Me. The meeting was attended by a small group of Vineyard fishing activists.
As New England fisheries officials negotiate the finer points of a new groundfish management plan, Massachusetts voters appear firmly behind proposals to change the days-at-sea regulation scheme to one that uses community-based, fishermen-run cooperatives to monitor and limit cod, flounder and haddock fishing.
When Warren Doty first moved the Vineyard in the late 1970s, the Menemsha harborfront was booming.
“Then there were five boats landing 10,000 pounds of sea scallops every three days,” he recalled. “There was a work force of ten shuckers in three different shucking shacks. That’s 30 Islanders working on the docks with about fifteen on boats. The season lasted from October to April every year. There were 45 to 50 jobs in Menemsha for six to eight months during the season.
Oyster growers are as competitive as they come. “Insanely competitive,” according to Bob Rheault. As president of the East Coast Shellfish Growers Association, Mr. Rheault also encounters cultivators of clams, quahaugs and mussels, but none rivals the oyster farmer for competitive spirit.
“We all have this conviction that our oyster tastes the best,” said Mr. Rheault, an oyster farmer himself, “and, if you don’t have this conviction, you probably shouldn’t be in this business.”
The Chilmark shellfish industry can expect a bumper 2008 scallop season and a broader revitalization, given the early successes of its experimental shellfish propagation program launched last summer, town selectmen heard Tuesday.
The town’s shellfish propagation officer, Isaiah Scheffer, presented selectmen with a 34-page report of his work to date.
Concerned the Vineyard will be locked out of participation in a restored federal fishery, a small group of Island commercial fishermen went to a meeting of the New England Fishery Management Council last month to make their plea for some part of the future pie.
Today only one Island fisherman, Gregory Mayhew of Chilmark, is permitted to pursue cod, haddock and yellowtail in federal waters.