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Are government regulations drowning the fishing business?

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    Fishermen say cutbacks may end industry

  • Duration 3:38
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Let me -- to -- here FOX & Friends quarter till the hour now government regulations are sinking profits for New England fisherman.

With huge cutbacks on cod catches including a seven 7% reduction in the gulf of Maine.

And a 61% reduction in Georgia's bank many fisheries may not be able to stay afloat joining us now is one of the many who will be impacted.

-- -- -- commercial fishermen -- member of the New England fishery management council good morning to you thank you so much for joining us.

Good morning nice to be here and you're telling me date you essentially and could go out of business.

Because of these regulations that have just been put into place.

Yes this this comes on top of numerous other regulations that have been put into effect in the last thirty years.

As an example I believe I'll probably be able to fish and boat three days in total for the -- -- -- Well and for a lot of us who just like to eat the fish and we don't know a lot about the fishing industry you say that you actually can't -- some of these fish.

Without catching other fish explain kind of how the process works and and where all the red tape is coming prop.

Okay well the these Fisher what's called multi species complex which means there's a number different species that all swim together.

Ones that people would -- -- most familiar with a probably caught attic and various kinds of -- so the way the system works is you get an individual allocation of each species.

When you catch the one of which who have the least amount.

You're done for the year.

So not only was the -- cut by 77%.

But -- attic was cut by a number about the same flounders we'll cut by.

Numbers on the order of 50% says -- really going to be very little you're allowed to bring it.

So what's gonna happen and attacked the -- for your industry for you personally -- mean.

How many days a year you -- going to be evident -- that's out.

Well as I -- I think right now might projecting they haven't seen actual numbers from my vessel yet.

Is on the order of three days -- -- -- -- ethic that he five days.

That's correct.

So how does -- feel what the government stepping in time and time and time again.

Well I mean necessarily playing here on the part of the fishing community.

For a number reasons one is we we don't see the -- is being in that bad of shape.

A second -- There's something called the biological reference points which are basically -- targets you have to get through and we feel those have been set for.

A cold water regime and we're currently in a warm water regime -- our productivity is much less.

And when the council -- some members of the council had asked to have that examined.

That really hasn't been done so we think the targets that were trying to reach are unrealistic at the -- One -- and how I got to play devil's advocate for a moment you know we we worry about mother earth and we want to make sure that we're being environmentally friendly.

Do you at least see the argument from the flip side.

Oh absolutely I mean it.

I always say if there's no fish they'll be no fisherman.

But there there are other ways to deal with this I mean there are ways that we could keep these small -- people such as myself.

Afloat.

Catching -- relatively small amounts of fish.

But we didn't have the time to explore any of those options so basically right this is a one size fits all management policy that's put into effect.

We devastating consequences for some people and not so much for others.

-- we're gonna have to leave it there thank you so much for your time and I understand you're just looking for a compromise on this.

Have a great day.

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