The 2014 Shrimp Season In The Gulf Of Maine Has Been Canceled

Some of the is due to global warming. But some is due to overfishing. They habitually fish a species to depletion, resulting in small catches, and then complain if there is a moratorium to let stocks build up. I guess it would make too much sense to moderate the amount of catch in good years, to maintain a more steady supply and customer base.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/12/04/3021451/maine-shrimp-season-closed/

http://www.pressherald.com/news/Regulators_scrap_shrimp_season_in_Gulf_of_Maine.html

Dec. 3, 2013

Fishermen will lose income and shrimp processors fear their industry will be harmed worldwide because of regulators’ decision Tuesday to cancel the 2014 shrimp fishing season in the Gulf of Maine in response to the species’ collapse.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission voted to close the Gulf of Maine to shrimping after a harvest last winter that was the smallest since the last shutdown of the fishery, in 1978.

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North Atlantic shrimp provide a small but valuable fishery for New England fishermen, with several hundred boats going after them using nets and traps. About 85 percent to 90 percent of the annual harvest in the Gulf of Maine is typically caught by Maine boats.

This summer, a survey indicated that the northern shrimp stock was at its lowest level since the annual trawl survey began in 1984. A report released Nov. 21 by the fisheries commission’s Northern Shrimp Technical Committee concluded that the stock has collapsed.

The report recommended a moratorium on shrimping in 2014 to maximize the species’ spawning potential. It attributed the collapse in part to warming ocean temperatures.

Regulators said the warming ocean and the absence of the normal springtime surge of plankton, a critical link at the bottom of the ocean’s food chain, have hurt northern shrimp. Predation by other fish species and overfishing a few years ago also contributed to the collapse.

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Fuller said fishermen and processors were hurting even before Tuesday’s decision.

“The damage started last year,” he said, noting that previous weak seasons have produced catches so small that markets in Europe have dried up.

Even if the fishery recovers, processors will be back in the same boat they were in after a slump in 2000-01, when they had to lower prices to win back customers.

“All of the work that has been done over the past 12 years is lost, as far as marketing and product development,” Fuller said. “It’s dire straits.”

The shrimp harvest averaged about 25 million pounds a year from 1969 to 1972 before falling below 1 million pounds in 1977, leading to a closure of the fishery a year later. There were similar down cycles in the late 1990s and early in the last decade. After each bust, the industry had to rebuild after losing customers.

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