Commercial Fishing

The Ventura County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved construction of a small commercial-fishing dock at the predominantly recreational Channel Islands Harbor. Fishermen hailed the step as positive but long overdue. "There's an obvious need for more facilities, more docks, more space on the waterfronts. There's a tremendous tie-up," said Brandon King, owner of the harbor seafood company that bears his name.

With increasing ship traffic through once-frozen northern seas and the expected debut of offshore oil drilling as early as July, the U.S. Coast Guard is launching Arctic Shield, its largest-ever deployment in the Arctic Ocean.  Coast Guard officials disclosed this week that they will be mounting full-scale Coast Guard cutter patrols as well as helicopter and small-craft operations across the northern and western coasts of Alaska as Royal...

It's mid-April, and the gray-haired fisherman and his gray-haired son are not headed out for just another day of hoisting nets from the depths of Lake Michigan. For decades their workday has always started before dawn. But today the men don't climb aboard their battered commercial fishing boat until noon, because they aren't hustling to get to their normal fishing grounds three hours out in the middle of the lake — a place that, from the view out the little round windows of the wheel house, is still as wild and lonely as any on the globe.

It's mid-April, and the gray-haired fisherman and his gray-haired son are not headed out for just another day of hoisting nets from the depths of Lake Michigan. For decades their workday has always started before dawn. But today the men don't climb aboard their battered commercial fishing boat until noon, because they aren't hustling to get to their normal fishing grounds three hours out in the middle of the lake — a place that, from the view out the little round windows of the wheel house, is still as wild and lonely as any on the globe.

I am writing this to defend my name against the commonly used word "'overfishing." "Overfishing" insinuates commercial fishermen are to blame for 20 million people who think this is a pretty neat place to live. I am not sure if the general public is aware of this, but overfishing is a relative term. For example, if you have only two fish remaining in the ocean and their offspring have a snowball's chance in hell of survival because of gross mismanagement of a fishery, pollution, loss of habitat and global warming, then a fisherman catching one of these might be guilty of over-harvesting.

Amid growing complaints by Mexico's tourist industry about a lack of adequate fisheries management and the subsequent depletion of species popular among recreational fishermen, it appears that the country is finally taking a hard-line stance against illegal fishing by commercial fishermen, particularly the Japanese syndicate Copemapro. "We've been fighting for the last eight years against commercial fishing for marlin," said Luis Bulnes, owner of the Solmar Hotel in Cabo San Lucas and head of the Los Cabos Hotel Assn.

Stung by an adverse ruling by the state office of administrative law, state fish and game officials say they will attempt to redraft an emergency ban on commercial fishing for white croaker off the Palos Verdes Peninsula. The prohibition could be imposed if it is changed to conform more closely to the state law authorizing such steps, according to John Smith, chief counsel for the administrative law office.

After encouraging gains in the 1990s, populations of loggerhead sea turtles are now dropping, primarily because of commercial fishing, according to a federal review. The report stops short of recommending federal endangered status for the species, now designated threatened. But scientists and environmentalists say it should serve as a wake-up call about the future of loggerheads. "We are very concerned," said Mark Dodd, a Georgia wildlife biologist.

The fishing isn't as good as it used to be for the commercial fishermen working the waters off Southern California. Their landings of squid are barely more than a quarter of what they were in 2000. Seasonal quotas on other seafood are so low that they can be reached in as little as a week. Still, the most problematic catch for what's left of a once-flourishing fleet is sometimes encountered on land. The fishermen's hauls -- mainly squid, sardines and mackerel -- are bound for Asia.

A commercial fisherman on the Los Angeles waterfront, Joe Terzoli mends huge nets, maintains his 87-foot boat, San Pedro Pride, and plies choppy seas beyond the breakwater for sardines. Once, there were hundreds of local deep-sea netters like Terzoli, many of them descendants of immigrants from Italy, Portugal and Croatia. Today, there are only 22 such operations. The commercial fishing industry's grip is weakening at the city's southernmost point.

The sky was still black over the Gulf of Mexico as fisherman Jeff Howard steered his battered flat-bottom boat from one crab trap to another, frantic to snap up a few more crustaceans before the oil came. He had little time to waste. Stiff winds, rough waters and almost empty traps wouldn't keep him docked. Anything, he figured, was better than nothing. "Today might be the last day you can go," said Howard, 43. "You might not be able to go for another year. Who knows?" As the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico continued to spread Friday, Louisiana's $2.5-billion commercial fishing industry, which provides much of the country's domestic shrimp and oysters, is bracing for a virtual shutdown that could trigger shortages and price hikes for consumers nationwide.

Just yards from the murky waters of Noyo Harbor, the boats sit tilted sideways on scraggly grass, their hulls rusted, their white paint peeling. Bruce Abernathy has collected them for years on the cheap, hoping to make a killing selling the fishing rights that go with them when the salmon return and Noyo Harbor regains its rightful berth as one of the biggest salmon fishing ports in California. Instead, his dilapidated fleet has only grown bigger, as frustrated fishermen walk away from their boats.

A state blue-ribbon panel failed to reach agreement Thursday on proposed fishing restrictions for the 250-mile Southern California coastline after a marathon hearing that had environmentalists sparring with fishing interests over control of slivers of beach and ocean habitat. The five-member panel, meeting in Long Beach, had been expected to recommend a patchwork of no-fishing zones designed to restore the health and abundance of marine life between Santa Barbara and the Mexican border.

The Obama administration has indicated that when it comes to international agreements, it's giving high priority to arms control, human rights, law enforcement, investment and maritime law. With respect to the environment, it has listed climate change, plant genetic resources and persistent organic pollutants, among others. Tuna fish haven't been mentioned. Unfortunately, that omission reveals a sea of trouble, which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has a rare chance to correct if it acts quickly and if NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco follows her best scientific instincts.

In an attempt to head off a major commercial fishing march into the Arctic, the Obama administration declared a moratorium on expanded fishing in the still-uncharted waters of the far north. U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary F. Locke banned the expansion of most commercial fishing beyond the Alaskan coast until new scientific studies can determine what fish stocks exist and how crucial they are to maintaining a fragile Arctic ecosystem already under stress. The order, recommended by the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council in February, restricts future commercial fishing for finfish and shellfish in nearly 200,000 square miles of the Beaufort and Chukchi seas.

The fishing isn't as good as it used to be for the commercial fishermen working the waters off Southern California. Their landings of squid are barely more than a quarter of what they were in 2000. Seasonal quotas on other seafood are so low that they can be reached in as little as a week. Still, the most problematic catch for what's left of a once-flourishing fleet is sometimes encountered on land. The fishermen's hauls -- mainly squid, sardines and mackerel -- are bound for Asia.

"Just imagine, 10,000 men of Gloucester lost at sea," mused author-historian Joseph E. Garland as he stood on his back porch overlooking Gloucester Harbor and the Atlantic Ocean. "This is the greatest fishing port in the history of the Western Hemisphere, also the one with the most tragedies," Garland said. At 68, this rugged former fisherman has written 15 books, many about the men of Gloucester and their defiant battle with the sea.

Stung by an adverse ruling by the state office of administrative law, state fish and game officials say they will attempt to redraft an emergency ban on commercial fishing for white croaker off the Palos Verdes Peninsula. The prohibition could be imposed if it is changed to conform more closely to the state law authorizing such steps, according to John Smith, chief counsel for the administrative law office.

With a historic salmon fishing ban keeping the West Coast fleet tied up at the docks, a top Bush administration official Thursday declared a fishery failure that could allow the industry to land a $60-million federal bailout. Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez's announcement comes amid what he called "the unprecedented collapse" of the salmon population off California and Oregon. By proclaiming a salmon fishery failure for waters off the two states, Gutierrez gives Congress a green light to consider a bailout of the West's fishing industry for the second time in the last three years.

President Bush is trying to encourage more recreational fishing in state waters and adding more federal rules limiting commercial fishing of two overfished species -- striped bass and red drum. "These two species were once abundant in American waters, but their stocks have been overfished," Bush said in his weekly radio address, which had been timed to coincide with a fishing trip today to Maryland on the Chesapeake Bay. His text was released in advance on Friday.