U.S. Tuna Group Petitions To Ban Seiners From Cape Cod Bayff

The federally regulated bluefin tuna industry has a number of ongoing skirmishes among its different participants, most of which falls under the heading of balance and fairness for all users. The use of spotter planes is the one that grabs the most attention, but the relationship between purse seiners and general category fishermen has been simmering for years.

“I wouldn't say we're the best of friends,” said Peter Weiss, executive director of the General Category Tuna Association (GCTA).

Weiss filed a petition to ban seiners from Cape Cod Bay with the state Division of Marine Fisheries, which comes up for a hearing next month. While the taking of bluefin tuna is regulated by the feds, who can fish for what in Massachusetts waters is up to the state's Marine Fisheries Advisory Commission and the Division of Marine Fisheries.

Depending on the size of the fish and the demand in the marketplace, a single bluefin tuna can bring anywhere between from $2,000 to $10,000. With that kind of money, competition for fish that are under federally-set quotas, sizes and seasons is high.

Dan McKiernan, acting deputy director of DMF, said that the issue is not new. “It's been an issue that has been around for a long time,” McKiernan said in an interview last week. “Some fishermen say the seiners have an unfair advantage.”

There are five seiner licenses held by three individuals who are allowed to fish in the waters off New England. These are the only seiner licenses for tuna on the eastern seaboard, contrasted by more the 20,000 permits across all other gear types for Atlantic tuna, which includes bluefin, yellow tail, skipjack, skipjack, albacore and bigeye tunas.

Seiners use nets that can be drawn closed at the bottom to catch all of the fish encircled by the nets. These nets can be deployed quickly when the presence of fish is detected, and range in size from 1,000 to 2,000 feet in length. Last fall, a seiner made a set in Cape Cod Bay, causing uproar among the general category fishermen, who thought the seiners agreed to stay out of the bay.

Jeff Kadesh, captain of the Aquarius III out of Barnstable Harbor, sees no reason for the seiners to work the bay at all. “They should absolutely be banned,” Kadesh said. “There's no reason for those seiners to be fishing in Cape Cod Bay.”

An earlier attempt to ban the seiners from Cape Cod Bay was unsuccessful, but resulted in a “gentlemen's agreement” between the seiners and the general category fishermen to stay out of the bay. That agreement, which Weiss said had been more or less adhered to over the years, was brokered by a former DMF director and was among the fishermen themselves, not through the trade associations.

A message left for Richard Ruais, executive director of the East Coast Tuna Association, which represents the five seiner boats, was not returned by press time. In an article printed by the Boston Globe in October, Ruais said that while the seiners said they would "endeavor" not to fish the bay, economics of a bad year was behind that decision.

For his part, Kadesh said the bay should be reserved for the sport fishermen, as the seiners have the ability to reach places that logistics put off-limits to the smaller boats. “The small boats that fish in Cape Cod Bay can't go off-shore,” Weiss said. Kadesh recalled the earlier ban attempt, something that he and other sport fishermen “avidly and aggressively” supported. Weiss described the Boston-based GCTA as the only one “that caters to the general category,” and advocates for those fishermen whether they are members or not.

What's not in dispute among all who fish for tuna is that the bluefin fishery has not been great the past couple of years. All involved rate the past two years as among the toughest in recent memory. “It's been terrible the last several years,” Kadesh said. “Last year was one of the worst.”

Part of the problem is a lack of baitfish, something recognized by other fishing groups as a key issue for their stocks and economies. For the bluefin fishery, where there's no baitfish, there's no tuna. “Those fish go where they can eat,” Kadesh said. “We haven't had any concentration of baitfish in quite a while.”

Another belief held among the sport fishermen is that “school memory” is being lost. While never proven, there's a strong belief among general category fishermen that the same fish return to the same waters year after year. If true, large takes of schools of tuna would disrupt those migration patterns, a claim that many in the general category say there's ample anecdotal evidence to support.

Weiss said that even a single set “spooks the fish,” citing lower catch rates among general category fishermen in the weeks following a seiner set. “They can make one set and upset the entire season,” Kadesh said. He said that most of the fish caught by seiners are outside of the bay, and he believes that's the way it should remain.

“The bottom line is there's no reason for seiners to be there,” Kadesh said. “It should remain a small boat fishery.”