The 17-vessel fleet, operating under the banner Groundfish Forum, contends the NMFS action could cost the fleet in excess of $100 million annually and could bankrupt some vessels.
The suit says Groundfish Forum members are "already being forced to mothball fishing vessels for the 2024 season."
Here's the 42-page lawsuit, filed in Alaska federal court.
5 comments:
Give the longliners a chance and they will catch their quota. Draggers are killing more halibut than the directed quota!
Every pound of bycatch the trawlers bring aboard should be accounted for. Fines should be levied based on 100% mortality of this bycatch using the current or previous year ex-vessel value of commercial and recreational species. Money to be split between program monitoring costs and affected user groups. This would repay the actual costs of operation of these vessels to the U.S. citizens and user groups who are affected. This is the only method I can think of that reflects the real cost of the various trawl fisheries, and creates a real and immediate push to fish as cleanly as possible.
The initial arbitrary trawl catch limit, set when the halibut biomass was much, much higher than now, was ridiculous from the outset. What other sound, sustainable management strategy does not account for abundance fluctuations in its assessment of allowable take, and especially bycatch?
Oh, we might have to tie up more of our fleet to keep our profit margin higher, while we fish and waste them into oblivion....
If Amendment 80 wants to be a halibut user, they should pay the fish tax on the halibut like IFQ guys. Not just going forward but retroactively.
Having nearly destroyed the halibut and crab fisheries the Amendment 80 fleet throws a tantrum about a modest cut in bycatch, wonders, "why does everybody hate us?"
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