Worlds Deadlest Catch
Outdoors: Deadliest fishing area is actually in New England, not Alaska
Viewers watching television's “The Deadliest Catch” think the waters plied by the Alaskan crab boats of the Bering Sea are the most lethal in the world. BoatUS surprisingly reports the deadliest fishing area is actually here in New England's ground fish waters.National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health figures reveal that from 2000 to 2009, New England's fishery for sole, flounder, monkfish, pollock, haddock and cod takes far more lives. Our region's 26 fatalities are more than twice the total for crab fishing.
Fishermen who go out in bad weather to pull lobster pots or are lured unreasonably by the price of haddock, cod or monkfish this time of year, need to resist bad judgment when venturing forth.
The top two most important fishing ports in the United States are Alaska's Dutch Harbor and our own New Bedford. Figures for 2010 show that based on worth, landings here were the highest in the country, valued at $306 million, an increase of over 22 percent from the previous year. But the figures are deceiving.
The apparent improvement can be attributed not to an increasing health of the fishery, but rather to the 28 percent increase in the price of sea scallops, which account for three-quarters of the entire landings value. New Bedford's total catch, according to the National Fisherman, actually decreased 36.6 million pounds, from 170 million pounds in 2009 to 133.4 million in 2010.
Dutch Harbor has been number one in volume for 22 consecutive years, landing 515 million pounds, mostly pollock. But their total value was just $163 million, second to New Bedford. Massachusetts fishermen's tenuous prosperity owes much to sea scallops.
Worlds Deadlest Catch - News
Viewers watching television's “The Deadliest Catch” think the waters plied by the Alaskan crab boats of the Bering Sea are the most lethal in the world. BoatUS surprisingly reports the deadliest fishing area is actually here in New England's ground
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