Upcoming petition for a tending requirement for gill nets

[Cape Cod 19]

This was written by Paul Taska, of Truro, who is a fishermen and a lobsterman. This has been endorsed by many fishermen from Ma.
Feel free to let me know if you want to get involved.

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Ma. DMF
Ma. MFC

Attention: Director, Paul Diodati


Mr. Director,
We hereby petition Ma. D.M.F. for additional regulations in the Ma. States waters ground fishery to include a tending requirement for sink gill nets and a net-tag program. We request language be added to the CMR to the effect: a requirement that all sinking gill nets be removed from the waters under the jurisdiction of the commonwealth and brought back to port at the end of each trip, that no net may be left in the water while it's vessel is in port. This requirement would be for all vessels, state or federally permitted. A tag program, whereby a maximum number of tags would be issued and would need to be attached to any net aboard permitted vessels while at sea or within a reasonable time of landing or departing.

By their very design, a gill net is made to capture fish by their gills or entanglement, thus killing the fish in a short period of time or immobilizing the fish, making it vulnerable to predation. It's not a trap designed to hold fish unharmed, it's a killing device.

When a gill net is tended daily, most fish are of marketable quality and predation is greatly reduced. When nets are left unattended for days or even weeks, due to weather, mechanical or even market conditions, the fish caught will die, rot or be eaten by predators such as dogfish, crabs, sandfleas and slime eels. Most of these decaying carcasses fall out of the nets before the net comes aboard resulting in undocumented mortality, even when an observer is on board, which renders good science impossible. Only the fish most recently caught are marketable at a reasonable price. Others are in terrible condition and are sold as "scalers" for a fraction of what fresh fish could be sold for and thereby not complying with best possible use requirements. As for all the other fish that have rotted in the net or have been partially consumed by predators, their remaining bits and pieces fall off the net and collect on the bottom. The longer the net is left unattended, the more the bottom is covered with rotting debris. This is what fishermen call "souring the bottom". Fish will avoid this bottom and the gillnetter will move his nets to start this cycle all over again.

When gill nets are left unattended for any reason, the chances of mammal (whales, porpoises and seals), turtles, sturgeon and sharks of all kinds getting caught in the net increase by the number of days the nets are left unattended. In entanglement cases where the Center for Coastal Studies was able to identify gear type, 14% of right whale entanglements were sink gill net gear and in humpback entanglements, the figure was 50%. 23% of all gill net entanglements were lethal. These encounters happen more often than they should and because gill netters do not report them, (which leads to bad PR for the fishing industry) far more often than most people know. No actively fishing gill netter is going to go the record confirming the problems described here, for obvious reasons. But ask an ex gill netter captain or deckhand and these problems and others will be confirmed. Draggermen and scallopers can also confirm these claims as they often catch ghost gear.

Unattended nets are far more likely to be broken loose by severe storms or hit by mobile gear, breaking
the nett loose from the it's anchors and setting it adrift with the tide. This "ghost" net is still fishing and will continue to fish until it is recovered from the water or washes up on the beach, becoming yet another piece of fishing-related pollution, thereby leading to more bad PR for the fishing industry. Lobsters and crabs are very susceptible to a "ghost" net; the scent of dead fish draws them in and they become fatally tangled in the monofilament mesh. Lobster divers can confirm this problem.
A tending requirement should very nearly eliminate these problems.

On about half of the total days of the year, conditions are too rough for gill netters' vessels to go out fishing. Add to that other factors such as health, mechanical problems, family commitments, etc.
and a tending requirement would result in at least 60% less time in the water for these nets, which otherwise could be in the water100% of the time (and frequently are). No net or buoy lines in the water means no entanglements. Furthermore, any entanglements would be on fishing days, when fishermen are nearby and weather conditions would allow for more immediate reporting and reaction from response teams. The caught animal would have less time to roll and twist in the rope and survival rates would likely increase.

For the above reasons we are compelled to request that a tending requirement be added to the CMR for the states waters gill net fisheries as soon as possible. We feel that this requirement will be of greater benefit to both the resource and the greater public, beyond any inconvenience it might impose upon the vessels it would involve.

Respectfully,

[CCNautical]

You can count me in on wanting to get involved.