State fishermen looking at 82 percent cut, new study demanded

PDN's quote: "The stark difference between the two assessments in 2008 and 2011 threatens all fishing-related businesses in our city, and it is essential to reassess such wildly different findings and conflicting results, if a fishing community like Gloucester is to exist." - Gloucester Mayor Carolyn Kirk.

Mayor asks for new cod study

The Gloucester Times reports that Mayor Carolyn Kirk joined a call for the federal government to carry out a new assessment of Gulf of Maine cod stocks before ratcheting down catch limits that would have a dire effect on the fishing industry speaking to a group of New England fishery leaders Friday in Portsmouth, N.H., Gloucester.
      Kirk, addressing a special stakeholders workshop before officials of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and New England Fishery Management Council, delivered a letter from the city's revitalized Fisheries Commission that she said has also been sent to U.S. Commerce Secretary John Bryson.
      The mayor's presentation and commission's statement cited and questioned the dramatic differences between a 2008 NOAA cod assessment that found the stock on the verge of recovery and a new 2011 study that found Gulf of Maine cod badly over-fished and in dire straits... Read the Times here.Cod fishermen looking at 82 percent cut

Prospects bleak, limits eased, industry struggles

The New York Times reports today that the cod fishery in the Gulf of Maine has been crucial to our local fishermen since they threw their first hook in the sea.

Only four years ago a NOAA study said cod was one of the region’s strongest species, and it brought in $15.8 million two years ago, second only in revenue to Georges Bank haddock.

Now a new study claims that cod has been so severely over-fished that even if all fishing is stopped immediately, it will rebound to levels required under federal law.

Could destroy cod fishermen from
Massachusetts to northern Maine

The Bangor Daily News reports recently that the new data has survived an initial review, and scientists say it likely won’t change much. Several lawmakers, starting with U.S. Sen. John Kerry, are now asking the U.S. Commerce Secretary to order a new assessment of the cod’s health in hopes of getting better data, but prospects are uncertain.

But cod aren’t scarce and anyone who fishes the Gulf of Maine knows it, New Hampshire fishermen David Goethel said. He said the gap between the new estimate and reality demands a complete reworking of the new cod assessment, just as lawmakers have requested.

That includes rethinking the numerous assumptions that go into the various population models, including such complexities as how well the federal boat that catches fish population samples scoops up older cod.

Still, there’s optimism a solution can be found, if only because the alternative is devastating cuts that could sweep away remaining fishermen from Provincetown to northern Maine.

Read the Times story here. Read the News story here.

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