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CONSERVATION LAW FOUNDATION, et al., Plaintiffs,

v. Civ. No: 1:00CV01718-GK

ROBERT L. MALLETT,  et. al., Defendants.

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DECLARATION OF HERMAN BRUCE

I, Herman Bruce, base this declaration my personal knowledge.

1. I am a resident of North Dartmouth, Massachusetts.

2. I am the owner and, until last month, the operator of the F/V Zibet and the owner of the F/V Dolphin.

3. The F/V Zibet and the F/V Dolphin, home ported in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, have full-time permits to participate in the Atlantic sea scallop fishery.

4. I have participated in the Atlantic sea scallop fishery for 43 years. My family has participated in Atlantic fisheries since the 1930's.

5. I have been a participant in the Fisheries Survival Fund since its inception.  In fact, I was one of its original organizers.

6. We understand the need for conservation of Atlantic scallop stocks.  While we do not always agree with the measures that the government has taken to conserve and manage scallop stocks, we share their goal of providing for a sustainable fishery.

7. One of the Fisheries Survival Fund's goals has been the development of a rotational management plan for the scallop fishery.  We have worked very hard and expended considerable resources in the collection of information and development of approaches for rotational fishing. We are also working on ways to reduce scallop dredges' bycatch of other fish species.  We used to land many of these fish, but now that the laws have changed, we cannot.

8. I consider the Georges Bank Closed Area fisheries in 1999 and now in 2000 to be important transition steps to the kind of full rotational fishing program the scallop fishery needs to survive in the long-term.

9. I have actively participated in the New England Fishery Management Council's efforts to conserve and manage the Atlantic sea scallop fishery.  In fact, for the past few years, I have been nominated and chosen by the Council to serve on its Scallop Industry Advisers Committee, which provides recommendations and information to the Council's Scallop Oversight Committee in connection with that committee's formulation of management options for the full Council to consider.

10. Until 1994, when these areas closed for groundfish reasons, I often fished for Atlantic sea scallops in the areas now called Georges Bank Closed Area I, Georges Bank Closed Area II, and the Nantucket Lightship Closed Area.  These areas have historically accounted for a large percentage of my scallop catch and income.

11. I also fished in Georges Bank Closed Area II during the 1999 fishery there.  The size and abundance of scallops in that area was as large as I have ever encountered in 40-plus years of fishing.  These scallops obviously rebounded from the heavy scallop and groundfish fishing effort of the past in that area.

12. I am familiar with the bottom type found on Georges Bank and in its Closed Areas in particular.  I have gained this familiarity in a very practical way.  If I fished in areas that contained rough bottom, such as those with concentrations of rocks and boulders, my dredges would get damaged and fouled through contact from the rocks, and they would often bring these rocks to the surface.  All things being equal, then, we have a practical and economic reason to avoid scallop fishing in areas of rough bottom.

13. In addition, in my practical experience, scallop abundance and yields have generally been better in areas of sandy and relatively soft bottom.  In my practical experience, scallops prefer areas with a soft and sandy bottom that also have currents that circulate food.  Sandy and soft bottom areas also tend to be shallower and occur on banks (such as Georges Bank).

14. For all of these reasons, through time, I sought to concentrate much of my scallop fishing effort in those areas of Georges Bank that I have concluded contain sandy and soft bottom.  These areas also have provided high scallop yields over the years.

15. The 1994 closure of the Georges Bank Groundfish Closed Areas negatively altered my historical fishing strategies.  These closures pushed me into areas that have historically been less abundant and also into areas with bottom that was rougher than that on which I prefer to fish. Yields dropped in these outside areas, especially as we were forced to continue to fish there, year after year.

16. I have, however, experienced a rebound in scallop stocks outside the Georges Bank Closed Areas since late 1998.  I attribute this rebound to scallops' remarkable natural ability to rebound from levels of low abundance, to the fact that the government has imposed many years of significant conservation measures that are taking effect, and to the effect of the five closed areas (Georges Bank and Mid-Atlantic).

17. As a participant in the scallop fishery with a continuing interest in its rebuilding, I believe it is important to make sure that our scallop fishing efforts do not injure or kill very many scallops that we are not harvesting.

18. For this reason, I prefer not to fish in areas containing relatively large concentrations of relatively small scallops for two reasons.  First, smaller scallops are more fragile than larger scallops and are more likely to be damaged by the dredge.  In addition, some of the small scallops that are brought on board and discarded run the risk of injury or death.

FURTHER DECLARANT SAYETH NOT.

I declare under the penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct.

 
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Herman Bruce