Departments
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Week of 18 September 1998 |
Vol. II, No. 6 |
Feature
Article
Strip-mining the sea
New fishing practice is dragging the industry down
by Brian Fitzgerald
The "Sacred Cod," a 1784 wooden carving suspended above the House Chamber in the Massachusetts State House, symbolizes the enduring importance of the fishing industry to the region. But thanks to recent technological advances that have caused overharvesting of the sea, the future of the official state fish -- and those who catch it for a living -- hangs in the balance, according to CAS Associate Professor Les Kaufman, who is monitoring the cod ocean nurseries off the Massachusetts coast.
In fact, he is getting to the bottom of the problem. In his project, called the Seaing Eye, Kaufman and his colleagues in the Boston University Marine Program (BUMP) are taking a close look at disturbed areas on the floor of the Gulf of Maine with underwater video cameras. "The study began in 1996 with initial seed money from the Pew Charitable Trust and continues with grants from the Kendall Foundation and the Mudge Foundation," says Kaufman. "This summer we completed our first research trip to an area that was closed to fishing in May."
As the team plans several more expeditions for October, he is also analyzing his video footage, and will present his conclusions to the New England Fishery Management Council. At present, this 17-member body is wrestling with changes in the federal fisheries laws that require states to protect "essential fish habitat."
It's no secret that cod, haddock, and flounder populations off New England's shores have been greatly reduced in recent years. Harvests plummeted by almost 37 percent between 1987 and 1993. In 1994 the federal government closed several areas in Georges Bank, an area the size of Massachusetts that stretches from Cape Cod to the Gulf of Maine. It also limited fishermen's days at sea, gradually cutting back to 142 this year. Before regulations, they were plying their trade as many as 260 days a year.
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Les Kaufman
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"The ocean's bottom is where juvenile cod and haddock feed," says Kaufman. "They thrive around scruffy rocks. After dragging, the stones are left bare of sponges, anemones, mussels. There are no places for the fish to avoid predators such as dogfish and skate and even their own parents."
In the early 1990s, more than 35,000 square miles were dragged in the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank annually. "It's obvious how dragging affects baby fish: if there's nowhere to hide, you're lunch," says Kaufman, who specializes in the study of aquatic biological diversity and the processes that maintain it -- and destroy it. "Dragging is comparable to strip mining, or clear-cutting a forest. But in the case of trees, after a number of years second-growth forest emerges, and it is harvestable. What we're doing is determining how long it takes a dragged sea bottom to recover."
Kaufman is working closely with James Lindholm (GRS'99), who is a year away from completing his doctoral studies on fish nursery habitats in the Gulf of Maine. The team also includes CAS Assistant Professor of Geography Matthias Ruth and Peter Auster, a scientist from the National Undersea Research Center. Their research is closely allied with a sister project led by Robert Steneck of the University of Maine, who studies lobsters and sea urchins that live in Maine's inshore fisheries.
"Preliminary indications show that it takes even longer than we thought for a dragged bottom to support life again," says Kaufman. "Sea scallops, which help provide habitats for fish on sandy bottoms, take much more time to recover than bay scallops."
Scientists and environmentalists aren't the only people who see the effects of dragging. Many bait-and-hook fishermen oppose the presence of draggers in their fishing waters. "What is unique about this project is that we're on the fishermen's boats showing them the damage through our drop cameras and submersibles," says Kaufman. "One of our objectives is to help fishermen get their fingers on the pulse of their own resource. In many cases, they're fighting for their livelihood." Indeed, there were some 3,500 year-round fishermen in Massachusetts in 1985. By 1997 the number had dropped to less than 1,300.
As the New England Fishery Management Council prepares to present its recommendations to the U.S. Department of Commerce later this fall, Kaufman is enthusiastic about what the Seaing Eye can accomplish. "I think scientists have a professional obligation to work with the fishermen in this effort," he says. "We're training half a dozen researchers who will continue to work with this community."
Kaufman, who has also worked on methods of restoring indigenous species of fish in Africa's Lake Victoria, says that natural systems have an uncanny ability to rebound from disturbances. "Sea bottoms get churned up by hurricanes, and obviously they recover," he says. But, he points out, throughout centuries of fishing in New England, the industry had never been threatened with extinction -- until technological advances of recent years made today's overfishing possible.
The problem is not just a regional one. Nearly every major marine fishery is experiencing difficulties. According to the National Marine Fisheries Service, almost 80 percent of commercial fish species are being either overharvested or harvested near the sustainable limit.
"Fishing for a living is a big part of our state's heritage," says Kaufman. "But this livelihood is in trouble. When you go to Stop & Shop, do you want to buy fish that has been caught in New England or in Indonesia? With video cameras we can now see the harm wreaked by past carelessness, and the visible benefits of thoughtful stewardship. By communicating this information regularly, we can guide the fishing community toward a way of life that it can sustain."