They, more than anyone, want to see the waters filled with swordfish, otherwise they won't have a livelihood. I am very sympathetic to that point of view,'' says SeaWeb's executive director Vikki Spruill. Everyone has an opinion. Fishermen's groups accuse the environmental organization SeaWeb, a project of the Pew Charitable Trusts, of having interests unrelated to conservation. No one disagrees that these problems exist.
All sides claim to be conservation-minded.
When New England quotas have been met, some retailers, like Roger Berkowitz of Legal Sea Foods, buy swordfish from boats as far south as Florida. He won't bring in swordfish from South America. It doesn't eat the same,'' he says. Less than 20 percent of swordfish consumed in the United States is caught in the North Atlantic, whose fishery was 750,000 pounds under quota last year, an amount that will be added to this fall's catch. The targeting of our fishermen is what riles critics.