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The Whiting catcher vessels are the best of the trawler 

 fleet, being equipped with the latest gear and 

 experienced captains. Restriction their season to only 

 a few months instead of a seven month season, pushes them 

 back to compete onto already crowded shrimp and 

 groundfish species. This causes even more severe 

 cutbacks and shorter seasons for all coastal vessels. 



This decision cost the coastal fishermen and processors 

 dearly by restricting their harvest to only a few months 

 instead of 6 to 7 months. In contrast, due to their 

 mammoth harvest rate, the best season the factorship 

 fleet can hope for is only one of several days duration. 

 This year it was only about 22 days with only about one- 

 third of the ships participating fully. One must look at 

 how short this season really would be if all 60 some 

 factory ships became involved in this harvest. The 

 entire quota would be utilized in less than thirty days, 

 making an economically viable fishery into one that is 

 very questionable due to the shortness of the season. 

 This rapid pulse fishery causes a very huge loss to the 

 coastal communities in terms of payroll and support 

 services required by the plants as well as vessels. Most 

 of these small vessels are family owned as are most of 

 the support businesses, ie., repair shops, gear supply 

 houses, trucking companies, and were developed to handle 

 the needs of the Historical Whiting Catcher Vessels. 



In terms of employment, my particular plant, with a bi- 

 monthly payroll of $300,000, will have to lay off over 

 100 people who will have only worked an estimated 12 

 weeks instead of an anticipated 20' to 24 weeks this year. 

 This will make it difficult for us to retain access to 

 experienced people and also causes us marketing 

 difficulties due to the U.S. and overseas buyers 

 perceiving the onshore processors and not having access 

 to enough product to fill their needs. This forces them 

 to look to both the factorship companies but, even worse 

 for us, and to look to other foreign countries for their 

 needs. Whiting, when processed for a full 6 to 7 month 

 season, represents 50% or more of my plant's income. 

 It is important to note that our industry has lost over 

 half of the available goundfish and salmon poundage that 

 we had ten to twelve years ago. Having to operate on 

 such a drastically reduced volume has caused several 

 processors and small vessel owners to go out of business. 

 Further restricting the Whiting harvest will only 

 exacerbate this problem. 



