A short video by the Marine Conservation Alliance includes interviews from fishermen about how much safer fishing has become in Alaska under catch share management.
One fisherman explains that before catch shares the crab fishing season, “was long enough that everybody was exhausted and you went beyond what maybe you should. And short enough that you couldn’t stop and rest.” Another fisherman states that with the catch share management system, “I don’t have to race for fish.”
Earlier this year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that in 2009 fishing was – once again – the deadliest job in America. The profession is often made more dangerous by traditional fishing regulations that sharply curtail when fishermen can be on the water. This increases pressure to catch as many fish or shellfish as quickly as possible. Fishermen sometimes go fishing even in the face of dangerous weather, overload their boats with equipment, and work much longer hours. Under catch shares, fishermen have far more flexibility on when to fish as long as they stay within their specified quota allotment for the season.
2 Comments
This is a load of B.S. talk about the 100’S of crab fisherman who lost there job’s because of GREED. Gretar as a large % of owners of quota don’t fish anymore, they just go to the mailbox to get a check. It is wrong to make $$ from a fishiery that you do not fish in.Also Arne Thompson is a puppet mouth peice for the large quota share holders and is a goof! And the Boat caught in the ice in the clip, no one was lost. Bullshit video. great timing for the 5 year review. How do you sleep at night. Quota holders RIP off the hard working crews who do the real work, not just skip to the mailbox for a shameful check for nothing. We need to make it , If you own quota you fish quota !!
Crab cpat,
Apparently you don’t own any quota. Th men who own quota and lease it out deserve every penny they make. They are the ones who put their money on the line in a very risk business and bought a boat. Most of the guys went through wives and never saw their children to make sure they made their boat payments. This is the kind of stress you may never understand if you’re only a deckhand.
JJ