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Ok if you didn't like that then you probably won't like reading this from today's Cape Cod Times the latest on the Harwich Herring Run Situation:
Who runs the herring run?
Cape officials argue their case on Beacon Hill for local control of access and harvesting.
By DAVID KIBBE
TIMES BOSTON BUREAU
BOSTON - For centuries, the arrival of herring in runs across Cape Cod has been an honored, springtime tradition. During hard times, the herring were a source of food. Even today, some Cape natives still have a taste for herring roe, dubbed the poor man's caviar.
But the dwindling herring are also valuable bait, and an attractive target for poachers from off the Cape. That has led to fights over whether towns can restrict herring catches to town residents, or are obligated to let anyone dip a net in the run.
So far, the state Division of Marine Fisheries and the courts have ruled that towns cannot bar outsiders, because the herring are a state and regional resource.
Not satisfied, Harwich and Eastham officials took their fight to limit access to their runs to the Statehouse yesterday. A bill sponsored by Rep. Shirley Gomes, R-Harwich, and Sen. Robert O'Leary, D-Barnstable, would allow those two towns to set their own regulations on herring runs, including the right to limit the catch to town residents.
During a hearing before the Natural Resources Committee, Harwich town officials said they were best suited to manage the town's two herring runs, not the state. When selectmen discovered that out-of-town, commercial dealers were filling up pickup truck beds with herring last year, they decided it was time to fight back.
In a letter to the committee, O'Leary equated the herring debate to restricting beaches to town residents. "Much like resident-only beaches, this will both protect the natural resource and preserve it for those whose tax dollars and efforts maintain it," he wrote.
The towns may not have much luck on Beacon Hill. Rep. Robert Koczera, a New Bedford Democrat who co-chairs the committee, said he had "serious reservations" about the bill. Koczera said it could lead to different regulations in every town. The state oversees 144 herring runs along the Massachusetts coastline.
Letting towns regulate their own herring runs would "open the floodgates to create a patchwork of regulations for 144 different ladders," Michael Armstrong, the manager of recreational fisheries for the state Division of Marine Fisheries, warned the committee. Legislators did not vote on the bill yesterday.
Each spring, thousands of herring migrate from the ocean to the same ponds where they were born, before reproducing and returning to the ocean.
With state approval, towns already place limits on herring catches. Towns can also allow residents to take twice as many herring as outsiders.
Administrator Wayne Melville has never taken a bite of it - like many - but he said passions over the issue run deep in Harwich.
"This is more than a story about herring," Gomes said.
Town officials described it a clash of two cultures: the people who live in Harwich and have managed, maintained and paid for the runs, and outsiders who take the herring for profit.
"It's about old Harwich," said town Selectmen Cyd Zeigler. "It's about Harwich doing what they've been doing forever."
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