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Fish Story
Connecticut's shrinking fishing industry: The one that got away?
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Business New Haven
3/20/2000
By: Michele Beck
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Connecticut's longest border is the one bordering Long Island Sound. The most important river in New England, the Connecticut River, has its mouth in the middle of our state.
That's why it's hardly surprising that since Connecticut's earliest days, fishing has been an important source of revenue and a livelihood for thousand of its residents. Last year alone more than 3,500 commercial fishing licenses were issued, and in 1999 the fish landed in Connecticut ports were valued at more than $16 million.
While the relative importance of the state's fishing industry has slowly but steadily declined, it has remained a significant one. Yet in recent months and years, the stability of the Connecticut fishing industry has been severely shaken.
Most by now have heard of the terrible, mysterious blight that has resulted in the deaths of enormous numbers of lobsters in western Long Island Sound. Not everyone, however, may be aware of the extent of its impact on the state's lobstering industry, which the state Department of Environmental Protection's Marine Fisheries Bureau had characterized until recently as “one of the most productive and stable in New England.”
“We're coming off of record abundance in Long Island Sound,” explains Kurt Gotschall, a Marine Fisheries biologist. This has made the sudden and dramatic loss of lobsters in the western Sound all the more devastating. Fall 1999 landings of lobsters at ports from Greenwich to Norwalk were down between 91 and 99 percent, and at Connecticut ports east of Norwalk, between 64 and 91 percent. The state's lobster fishers are reporting losses of between at least $73,000 and $84,000 for the year.
What makes the situation even more dire is that scientists studying the die-off have still not been able to definitively pinpoint the cause of the deaths, much less outline measures that will be able to effect a reversal. There exists the possibility that the situation is not reversible.
According to Gottschall, one theory is that lobsters become stressed at temperatures of 20 degrees centigrade and above. The duration of warm water in 1998 and 1999 was much greater than in previous years, with 1999 the warmer of the two. If warmer water is closely tied to the die-off, lobsters may simply retreat from the western Sound - or from the Sound altogether - if the warming trend continues.
According to a report prepared by Human Ecology Associates of Narragansett, R.I., more than two-thirds of Connecticut lobster fishermen are 40 years old or older, with considerable investments of both time and money in their work. Most have been fishing lobsters for more than 20 years. Retraining these workers would be difficult and expensive. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that the die-off may change these workers from an economic asset to the state to an economic liability.
The lobster industry has also traditionally accounted for nearly two-thirds of the state's total fishing revenues. In 1999, however, it accounted for less than half of the state total.
Other fishing industries, while much smaller in scale than lobstering, have also run into problems of late. The horseshoe crab fishery in Connecticut has an estimated worth of upwards of $70,000 annually. An exact figure is impossible to come by, as up until this year, fishers have not been required to have licenses or to report their landings.
Environmentalists up and down the Atlantic Coast have become very concerned recently about the fate of the horseshoe crab. Horseshoe crab eggs are an important source of food for many coastal bird species, and bird lovers fear that overfishing of the crabs will result in serious harm to the bird population.
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission recently set horseshoe crab quotas for all the Atlantic coast states. Connecticut's quota was set at 48,689. This is probably more than 20 percent less than the number of crabs actually being fished, estimates Penny Howell, a senior fisheries biologist with the state DEP. Moreover, a commercial fishing license is now required in order to fish the crabs, and a moratorium has been declared on issuing any new licenses for the fishing of horseshoe crabs.
Howell points out that horseshoe crab fishing had been on the ascendant of late, even though the extent of it is difficult to document. As it has gotten harder to make a living in traditional fin fishing, many people have looked to get into lesser-known types of fishing.
Another of these is conch fishing. The bait most often used to catch conch is horseshoe crab, broken up into pieces. So as the conch fishery has grown, horseshoe crab fishing has grown apace. That growth will most definitely be affected by the new regulations.
Another variety of fishing that is on the decline is shad fishing. There are more than a dozen species of anadromous fish that leave ocean waters and swim up into Connecticut's fresh waters to spawn. Of these, one has stood out as a significant commercial fish: the Connecticut River shad.
While shad fishing has never been a major fishery in the Nutmeg State, it is nevertheless notable that it, too, has been on the decline recently. The 1999 landing of shad was about 40 metric tons. Over the last ten years, the shad landing had typically averaged between 60 and 100 metric tons. The reasons for the drop have been a combination of human and environmental factors.
One major reason for the drop-off in the shad catch has been attrition among the ranks of shad fishers. In the 1950s, the state issued between 50 and 60 licenses a year for shad fishing. By 1990, that figure had dropped to about 30, and by 1999 to just 22.
Shad fishing is a difficult way to make a living. The season runs from April to mid-June (the time when shad swim upriver to spawn), and the fish must be caught at night. Spring nights along the Connecticut River are raw and cold. Also, this is the time of year when the river is flooding and carrying a lot of debris - tree limbs and other objects - that can easily catch in a net and foul or tear it. Special nets are required for shad fishing, and they are not inexpensive to replace.
“People have the notion that you can just throw a net in the water, catch a lot of fish, and make a lot of money,” says Tom Savoy, senior fisheries biologist with the DEP. “It's not an easy way to make money. These fish are worth 20 cents a pound. You catch 500 pounds of fish in a night, you only make $100.”
Thus, as the older shad fishers retire, there are few younger ones waiting to take their place.
Also, Connecticut River shad have had diminished runs the last few seasons. A typical run, says Savoy, is 750,000 to 1,000,000 fish. The 1999 run was only 400,000. The exact reasons for the decline are unclear, but Savoy and others suspect it may be an ironic consequence of the highly successful and hugely popular striped bass restoration program that the state has run.
“Striped bass [very popular with recreational fishers] is the fish restoration success story of the decade,” says Savoy. “We think there are more striped bass now than there ever were. When these get over eight to ten inches [in length], they eat other fish. The decline in the number of shad is exactly coincident with the increase in the number of striped bass.”
Still another factor in the decline of Connecticut's shad fishery has been the availability of shad from other Atlantic coast states. Shad are found all up and down the East Coast.
Traditional fin fishing has not had to contend with any significant setbacks of late. Total value of landings of fish other than lobster has remained fairly constant - a little over $8 million - over the last three years. This figure includes both fish caught in Long Island Sound and fish caught further offshore.
According to DEP Supervising Fisheries Biologist Dave Simpson, there are currently no significant environmental problems affecting the catch. With respect to Long Island Sound fishing, says Simpson, “Our biggest concern is low oxygen in the summer. If it gets low enough, it can push the fish further east - from Stamford-Greenwich east to Bridgeport. But there's not too much else that would affect things.”
With respect to fishing on the open ocean, principally done by fishers out of the state's eastern ports, “very little limits their ability to harvest,” Simpson says. He notes that contaminate levels - PCBs - in ocean fish will occasionally rise, but says these are still below current guidelines. Rises in contaminate levels have led to restrictions on the harvest in New York state, but not in Connecticut.
So, without minimizing the lobster disaster, it is safe to say that Connecticut fishing boats continue to ply their trade, much as they have done for hundreds of years, although in somewhat diminished numbers.
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