The Gloucester commercial fisherman who sent an open letter to President Obama through a full-page in the Vineyard Gazette will not be in the flotilla that will rendezvous at noon today outside Vineyard Haven in a nautical informational picket line.
Capt. Russell Sherman said he and his crew of three on the Lady Jane will be working instead.
He said the effort to save his business and the incomes of his family and the families of his crew trump the political action.
"I've got no money left to protest," said Sherman, who is believed to be the only Harvard-educated commercial fisherman on the East Coast.
"I'm buying ice to go out to Georges (Bank) with three fellows," Sherman said in a telephone interview Wednesday Afternoon. "Going to fish for haddock and cod."
As for the letter, professionally crafted for the Northeast Seafood Coalition, which paid for the Vineyard ad, Sherman said, "Sometimes you have to humble yourself, and tell the world you're going under."
At that, Sherman is not alone. Business failings are reported up and down the coast.
The culling of the fleet is an intended result of policies championed by Jane Lubchenco, who heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for the president. She is pushing to rapidly transform the fisheries into commodities markets to attract investment capital that will subsume small boat businesses into global scale conglomerates.
The fishing boat protest off Martha's Vineyard today was organized last week by the same interests — commercial and recreational — that put together a rare outdoor February demonstration at the side of the U.S. Capitol.
"We've got over 30 boats, and may have as many as 100," said Tina Jackson, a commercial fisherman from Rhode Island and a co-organizer of both events along with the Recreational Fishing Alliance and Rich Canastra, co-owner of the New Bedford and Boston seafood auctions.
Heavy seas and the length of the steam from Gloucester may hold down the turnout from this port and those to the north, but Jackson said boats were coming from New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Bedford.
Jackson said the protest is not pre-choreographed, and the Coast Guard is not planning to direct traffic.
But whatever the boats do, the harbor demonstrators' message is set; that the administration's fisheries policies are killing jobs and fishing businesses despite a long rebuilding of the stocks that is now nearly complete, Jackson said.
Shortly after her Senate confirmation, Lubchenco's office told the Times her goal was to consolidate the fishery until a "significant fraction" of the fleet is eliminated.
"We have worked over the past 16 years to rebuild groundfish stocks," Sherman said in his letter. "According to federal forecasts, a fully rebuilt fishery will yield a sustainable catch nearly five times current landings."
In a Wednesday interview, Sherman said he had invested so much in his vessel, including $75,000 this summer on the diesel motor, he had to carry on and try to survive until the promised stability was declared.
He recently obtained a $50,000 bank loan to lease quota.
The catch share regulatory system that took effect May 1 essentially encourages fishermen to buy, sell or trade their quota, permits or their shares of the total allowable catch — a dynamic that in virtually all other fisheries has yielded hyper consolidation as buying power reigned.
A consequence of the consolidation that has begun, with fewer fishermen, as the market in commercial fishing boats has collapsed.
"I've got a boat nobody wants to buy, it ain't worth a damn," Sherman said, giving another reason for his desperate try at remaining in business.
He said he wrote his letter because "I don't want to believe it's (President Obama's) policy."
His letter and the flotilla protest are the latest in a mounting archive of efforts to engage the president on fisheries policies.
Gov. Deval Patrick, who faces a re-election bid this fall, U.S. Sen. John Kerry and Congressman Barney Frank, congressional allies of the president, have been promising and trying for months to get Obama to intervene and halt Lubchenco's agenda.
Frank and Congressman John Tierney — along with North Carolina Congressman Walter Jones — have all asked Obama to replace Lubchenco, but were rebuffed. The protest against Lubchenco's policies has brought together a bipartisan coalition of 23 East Coast senators and representatives, which also include Republican Sens. Scott Brown of Massachusetts, Olympia Snow and Susan Collins of Maine, and Judd Gregg of New Hampshire.
Obama has not discussed fisheries policy in public, nor has the White House responded to two invitations to visit Gloucester to learn more about the industry.
One was from Mayor Carolyn Kirk; the other was extended by the Northeast Seafood Coalition, the region's largest fishing industry group.
Richard Gaines can be reached at 978-283-7000, x3464, or rgaines@gloucestertimes.com.
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