CHATHAM — Tuna fisherman and charter boat captain Bruce Peters has watched as a relatively dependable source of income dried up.
Atlantic bluefin tuna, massive schooling fish renowned as a delicacy served raw in Japan, can be worth thousands of dollars apiece to fishermen. But catches declined in the waters off Cape Cod from 2.4 million pounds landed between 1996 to 2000 to a little over 1 million pounds from 2001 to 2005, and just 531,000 from 2006 to 2010.
Peters, and many other Cape fishermen, think it is more than coincidental the decline occurred just as a large-scale fishery for herring, an important food source for tuna, was permitted, bringing large vessels working in pairs towing a massive net between them to within three miles of the Cape.
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