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Fishermen say markets and quotas lag climate-driven species shifts
Summary
Commercial fishing representatives told the panel climate change has shifted species distributions, leaving quotas and markets out of step and creating bycatch, with fishermen urging management flexibility and new market development to retain local value.
Fishermen at the Newport panel described decades of changing regulations and a more recent, climate-driven shift in species composition that has left quota systems and markets misaligned.
"We have an explosion of species and a shift of species and the science is there to to acknowledge that," said Fred Matira, who noted black sea bass are now abundant in Rhode Island waters while quotas and allocations remain concentrated in more southerly states. Matira described the management "choke" produced when bycatch limits constrain local fishers while abundant species go unallocated.
Panelists suggested tools to address these mismatches: management flexibility such as weekly aggregation programs that allow daily limits to be combined across time, cooperative data collection that supplies hard evidence for quota reallocation, and investments to develop local processing and markets so more harvest value remains in-state.
