Sustainability

by Glen Libby, Port Clyde Fresh Catch


 

The price of leasing fish
adds significant overhead
and basically makes
fishing not profitable.


 

There has been lots of talk and action pertaining to sustainability in the groundfish fishery over the years; so far the only focus has been on resource sustainability. This is good of course since you need a sustainable resource for any fishery to be profitable—key word “profitable.”

According to numerous reports, the lobster fishery has been very profitable this season due to high prices. When the lobster fishery was suffering from a glut of lobsters and very low prices, high bait costs, high fuel costs etc., we literally had the Maine Legislature enacting laws to address the problem. The Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative was created and funded in part through license fees from lobster harvesters and dealers. This is good stuff. Maine’s lobster industry is the backbone of our coastal economy and is worthy of the attention and support of our elected officials.

So what’s going on with groundfish?

Groundfish used to be a very important part of our coastal economy, but if you don’t dig deeply you have probably read articles over the last few years that talk about the “struggling groundfish industry,” and “depleted fish stocks.” But what is really going on, today?

We have gone from Days at Sea management, where fishermen were allotted a certain number of days they could fish each year, to what is basically a quota system called Sectors. The sectors are not a geographical area but are fisheries coops where a group of fishermen band together to self-regulate. This might sound something like the fox guarding the hen house but that is far from what really happens. The fishermen are on the hook, with federal oversight, to make sure they manage their collective quota in a sustainable fashion. What this means is, they are not allowed to exceed quotas that are allocated to each sector in any given fishing year. Should they exceed the quota there are stiff penalties and quota reductions the following fishing year. Basically, it is a very bad idea to exceed your quota.

Quota can be traded among fishermen and other sectors; there are several different sectors all over New England. The trades typically involve a fee that is paid to the holder of the quota, then the fisherman who paid the fee has the right to catch the fish that he or she leased. Leases are not permanent and the holder of each permit gets their permit share of quota reloaded each year when the new fishing year begins on May 1. The process starts over at this point.

The quota setting process involves a good bit of science about fish abundance and action by the New England Fishery Management Council. The process is somewhat cumbersome and there is a significant time lag between what is actually happening with fish stocks and the allocation of quota. Currently, fairly small operations here in Port Clyde and other ports around New England do not have anywhere near enough quota to make a profitable season without leasing fish.

Quota lease price is based on how much fish is perceived by fisheries regulators to be in the ocean in a given year. There is a different lease price for each species to be fished based on these quotas. A high quota means low lease price, a low quota means high lease price.

For a snapshot to help illustrate what this means for fishermen currently trying to make a go of it, the average price at auction in Portland last week for large cod was $1.79#, the cost to lease cod quota is currently running about $5.00#, the gross profit (before expenses for large cod) is $-3.21#, for market cod the average price was $1.67#, gross profit is $ -3.33#. Cod quota are very low to promote sustainability and no one is really targeting cod due to this situation, but there are still a few being caught and every cod caught represents a net loss to fishermen.

On the other end of the spectrum there are some species doing very well—take American Plaice flounders (Dabs). In Midcoast Maine around Port Clyde and in other places along the coast, Plaice has historically been the bread and butter fishery; they are the most prevalent. This stock is recovering rapidly and there have been reports of catches that are higher than what we saw in the 70s. This is great news and you would expect quotas to rise and lease prices to fall making this fishery profitable. This will happen eventually but as of right now due to the very slow to react fisheries management system we are dealing with quotas that were set some time ago when the stock of Plaice was much lower and in need of rebuilding. Last week at auction in Portland the average price of large dabs was $1.35#, lease price is $.090#, for a gross profit of $0.45#. For Medium Dabs the average auction price was $1.17# for a gross of $0.27#, small dab average price was $0.80# for a gross of $-.010#. There are other species in play of course but the results are similar for those with low quotas that do not match current high catch rates and current stock improvement. The price of leasing fish for virtually every groundfishing operation that is left adds significant overhead and basically makes fishing not profitable.


 

If the people in charge
cannot find a way to
do this, then they need
to be replaced with
people who can.


 

On top of all this you may have heard that the cost of monitoring fishing trips is set to be turned over to fishermen to the tune of at least $700 per day (mileage costs are also tacked on depending on how far away you live from the monitoring company, it will cost more to fish in Maine than it does in Massachusetts, the further east you live the higher the cost) each time a fishing trip is scheduled to have an observer onboard. NOAA, the agency that governs and manages the fisheries, has data proving that at least 60% of the fleet cannot afford this but apparently no one “can do anything about it.” This is a sad commentary about who is really running the show (Congress and NOAA) but that is another story and our fishermen really do deserve better than this.

Monitoring the fishery is important to add to the database that helps gauge the health of fish stock for resource sustainability, but resource sustainability is not the only mandate of the sustainable fisheries act. The act clearly states that the economic impact to coastal communities and individual fishing operations must be considered as well. One could speculate that by adding even more unsustainable cost to fishing NOAA will end up with less data as fishermen choose to stay at home or go out of business due to a negative profit margin. Selling out is not really an option for those with boat loans because their businesses are basically, to borrow a phrase, underwater due to being devalued severely in part due to the economic mismanagement of the fishery by our elected officials and their appointees.

The numbers do not lie; the economics of this do not work no matter how you look at it. It is a tragedy to finally get to the point of real fisheries recovery where groundfish could be once again an economic engine for our coastal communities due to recovery of fish stocks and then drive our fishermen out of business due to “economic” mismanagement of this aspect of the resource, our fishermen.

The government was right to recognize an economically bad situation in the lobster fishery and take action to help fix the problem. The problems in groundfish industry right now are mostly economic and deserve the same if not more attention before it is really too late to fix, not prop up with more disaster relief, but fix, these underlying issues that make absolutely no economic sense from any perspective. If the people in charge cannot find a way to do this, then they need to be replaced with people who can, before it is really too late and you can no longer get a fresh fish in Maine caught by a Maine fisherman.

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