By Richard Gaines
Staff Writer
—
Don't believe the Discovery Channel show, "Deadliest Catch."
The most dangerous fishing is done off New England and the Mid-Atlantic states for groundfish and scallops, not in Alaska's Bering Sea for crabs, according to a report by the federal Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
"Of those fisheries for which average annual fatality rates could be calculated," two CDC researchers reported earlier this summer, "the Northeast multispecies groundfishery had the highest rate, 600 deaths per 100,000 full-time employees, followed by the Atlantic scallop fleet, including the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions, 425 deaths per 100,000 full-time employees.
The Bering Sea Aleutian Island crabfishery over the same period had a death rate of 260 per 100,000 full-time employees.
The figures covered the period 2000 to 2009. During that time, 504 commercial fishermen were killed at work, the CDC reported. Those deaths include three out of Gloucester — the loss of Capt. Matteo Russo and his father-in-law, John Orlando, aboard the fishing vessel Patriot in January 2009, and the October 2009 death of lobsterman Jaime Ortiz.
The fatality rate has been declining since 1992, wrote the authors, J. Lincoln and D. Lucas from the Alaska Pacific Regional Office of the CDC's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
The institute developed the commercial fishing incident database in 2007.
It is true, the authors reported, that Alaska — where the popular reality show, "Deadliest Catch," is set — had the highest number of fishing deaths in the 10-year study period, but the death rate was higher in this region than Alaska.
"During 2000-2009," Lincoln and Lucas reported, "504 commercial fishing deaths occurred in the United States. The Alaska region had the highest number of deaths, 133 or 26 percent, followed by the Northeast, 124 or 25 percent, the Gulf of Mexico, 116 or 23 percent, West Coast, 83 or 16 percent, and the Mid- and South Atlantic, 41 or 8 percent.
Of those lost at sea, the CDC reported, 491 — or 97 percent — were male; the mean age of those lost was 41.
Nationally, an average of 58 commercial fishermen a year died in occupational accidents over the 10-year period.
The Environmental Defense Fund, which has been the lead advocate for catch shares — the management system that came into use in the New England groundfishery May 1 — used the publication of the report as a reason to hail the catch share format.
"To a certain degree, fishing is inherently dangerous - going out on a boat in the middle of the ocean, hauling heavy swinging pots or nets onto a deck covered in gear while waves crash around you carries a certain amount of risk," EDF's Kate Bonzon blogged.
"But the job can be made more dangerous due to restrictive fishery management policies that try to limit fishermen's catch by severely limiting fishing seasons and/or days-at-sea," she said, referring to the old system used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "When faced with such restrictions, fishermen attempt to maximize their catch in these short windows of time by going out regardless of weather, working longer shifts and overloading their boats with equipment."
Under the new catch share regimen, fishermen working in cooperatives known as sectors are allocated "shares" of a total allowable catch for each fish stock.
Richard Gaines can be reached at 978-283-7000 x3464, or rgaines@gloucestertimes.com
