Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Two Cape Cods: Hidden Poverty on the Cape and Islands - Part 15

The waters off Cape Cod have long been renown for great fishing. For generations, bold fleets of sailors have begun their hunt for fish from Provincetown, the outermost tip of Cape Cod. Provincetown's harbor was once filled with hundreds of draggers. Today, there are just over a dozen. More and more people leave the industry each year.

Provincetown fisherman Pedro Verde bought his own fishing dragger, the Blue Ocean, with his partner Louis Rebus five years ago. Most days, the boat is sits tied up at MacMillan Pier. Government regulations allow Verde just fifty-two fishing days each year.

Pedro Verde: "I learned how to fish since ten years old in Portugal. All my families are fishermen there. I went in the Grand Banks five months straight. So I've been coming here, I thought my life change here, but my life not changed here."

Verde is the last in a long line of the bold Portuguese sailors that have been the backbone of Provincetown's fishing fleet for generations. But fishing regulations, and the high cost of living has forced Verde's hand. The 34-year old father recently put the Blue Ocean up for sale.

Pedro Verde: "It's too hard to make a living. Right now with the new regulations, catch the fish and we have to throw them overboard. And it is ridiculous ? We cannot afford to send children to college anymore.

Bill Souza is a lobsterman now, but he used to drag and long line for fish commercially. He learned from his father, and him from his father before him, and so on. But Souza recently advised his own son against trying to make a living from the sea.

Bill Souza: "I just can't see the industry surviving this way. Everybody says you don't see the young guys getting into the business because they are all too smart for it. They would rather go pound nails or do something they can earn a decent living at and get the health benefits and all."

The fishermen put much of the blame for their troubles on government regulations. But government officials say they're trying to save the industry by preventing the depletion of the fishing stocks. It's a worthy goal and fishermen acknowledge, in some cases, that the regulations have worked. Some fisheries have rebounded but many fishing grounds remain closed. Mention Dogfish, for example, and sailors get angry. Dogfish have made such a large comeback, Verde says, that they have begun to devour juvenile Cod, as well as the Cod's food sources.

Pedro Verde: "Years ago this fleet is big on the dog fish. We catch tons and tons of the dogfish here. So the guys close up the dogfish for seventeen years. Endangered species. The guys don't even know what they are talking about b because there are so many dogfish in the summers here everybody can make a living. No reason to close the areas here for seventeen years. Endangered species. We've seen the dog fish more and more and more every year. There is no reason to close it for seventeen years. The guys don't do nothing about it. It's still closed."

There is a belief among fishermen that the government has little interest in supporting and encouraging small, owner-operated fishing boats because they are more difficult to regulate. If something doesn't change, fishermen expect that within the next decade the historic Provincetown Fleet, which once numbered near 700 boats, will be gone entirely, replaced by a handful of large factory boats that tie up someplace else. Even Provincetown's harbormaster, Rex McKenzie, says he sees the industry moving in that direction.

Rex McKenzie: "The problem comes into it with the federal government. The way they would prefer to control the fleet is to have just a few very large fishing boats, because that makes it easier for them to permit them and control them. The problem is it concentrates the economic development of just those few boats in a few ports."

Housing costs are also a factor. High rents and property taxes force fishermen to live farther and farther away from their boats. Many have switched to shell fishing, which is less regulated. Phil Michaud, who's rigged his boat to do dragging, scalloping and lobstering, says fish are a renewable resource, and he sees no reason why he can't continue to catch them, or why his children can't grow up to be fishermen if they want to. But the reality is, people are leaving.

Phil Michaud: "I've seen a lot of people leave. I've seen people lose their homes, I've seen them go bankrupt, I've seen just the stress they put on them, the divorce. It's wrong what's taken place? These are guys that were the best of the best that got out of it. You know, they didn't want to relocate, they didn't want to leave family behind. And that's what happens with government regulations. Sometimes it's not very sensitive."

When visitors enter Provincetown, they are greeted by a painting of several fishermen hauling away. But it's an image of the past, because there just aren't very many commercial fisherman left. The artists are still here painting, writing books and singing songs. But it's mostly pop music that leaks out of the taprooms on Commercial Street these days. Sea shanties, once a staple of this former fishing town, are rarely heard anymore.