Sunday, August 14, 2005

John L. Russell / Associated Press Tom Spaulding, the co-owner of Gauthier and Spalding Fisheries of Rogers City, right, and crewman Dave Kartman prepare to unload 7,000 pounds of whitefish. Undersize fish have cut into the company's profits.

Fishing industry suffers as Lakes shift

Commercial fishermen watch prices drop for their catch as invasive species grow in number.

By Gene Schabath / The Detroit News

Dwindling numbers Commercial fishing began to decline in the 1950s. Today, in Lake Huron alone: • Only 26 licensed commercial fishermen are left, compared with 318 in 1961. • They caught 2 million pounds of fish in 2004, compared with 6.9 million pounds in 1961. Comment on this story Send this story to a friend Get Home Delivery

ALPENA -- Skinny whitefish mean a thinner wallet for John Gauthier.

The veteran commercial fisherman says he faces a $100,000 drop in profits this year and blames it on svelte whitefish, higher gas prices for his boat and competition from Canadian fishermen.

With zebra and quagga mussels decimating the food supply of whitefish and other native species, commercial fishermen like Gauthier are selling the whitefish for 50 cents a pound these days.

"That's the same price my father used to get in the 1950s," said Gauthier, 55. "The people who smoke whitefish want plump fish, and that's the reason we're only getting 50 cents a pound. Three years ago we were getting 75 to 80 cents a pound."

Gauthier

Throw in $1,000 a week in fuel for Gauthier's 52-foot fishing boat, the Norseman -- double the cost from last year -- and it means tough financial times for the fisherman and his crew of five.

"You don't survive," Gauthier said. "You cut back on salaries and don't give your men increases like you have in the past... and in the spring, if you need money to start up, you borrow money. I've had to do that."

Gauthier's shortfall is part of $5 billion in annual economic losses in the Great Lakes caused by invasive species, according to a study prepared by David Pimentel, professor of ecology and agriculture sciences at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. The amount includes money spent by power plants to remove mussels from their water intake pipes.

"The introduction of (foreign) fish such as goby and sea lamprey, as well as other species, have had a big impact on commercial and sport fishing," Pimentel said. "The junk fish ... are not important as a commercial fish. The primary impact is there are fewer boats out fishing."

Pimentel pegs the loss for commercial and sport fishermen alone at $4.5 billion a year.

Mic Furbush, 63, of Muskegon, a bait salesman at Johnson's bait shop near Muskegon Lake, said the invasion of gobies into the popular fishing lake could spell disaster for local businessmen in the western Michigan city.

"Fishermen are catching three gobies for every perch," Furbush said. "This will be a real problem in the future."

But for some, like Macomb County bait dealer Ralph Kandt of Ray Township, the zebra mussel and goby have been a boon. The zebra mussels in Lake St. Clair have caused an unprecedented growth in aquatic plants, meaning more food for fish and a big increase in bass, perch, muskellunge and other sport fish.

"I've been fishing on the lake for 50 years and this is the best it's ever been," Kandt said. "And everything is eating gobies."

Lake Michigan charter boat captain Dennis Grinold is also having a banner year. "Chinook salmon fishing has been the best it's ever been," said Grinold, of Grand Haven. "We have an inverse situation from Lake Huron. They don't have any salmon but they have lake trout. We don't have lake trout because the zebra (and quagga) mussel have destroyed the lake trout habitat."

Grinold, who is the national adviser to the Great Lake Fisheries Commission and chairman of the Lake Michigan Citizen Advisory Council, said the biggest fear of people in the fishing business in Lake Michigan is a collapse of the Chinook fishery. Disease wiped out most of the salmon in the 1980s, but restocking brought it back.

"Then we had the lake trout to back us up, but we don't have lake trout now," Grinold said.

The concern is prompted by the impact zebra mussels have had on dioperia, the shrimplike creature that is a main food source of young salmon and other fish. Grinold thinks the reduction in dioperia is why there are fewer big-sized Chinook salmon. Sea lamprey attacks on salmon are also rising.

"The No. 1 concern of people in the Great Lakes should be invasive species," he said.