Your series of editorials on the New England fishing industry over the last six weeks has repeated incorrect information previously printed in other publications. As this topic is critically important to New England fishermen, I wanted to make sure your readers had accurate information about a very hopeful transformation currently taking place in the industry.
As you mentioned, this summer the New England Fishery Management Council finalized regulations designed to transition the groundfish fishery to "sectors." Unfortunately, the editorial based its criticism of this decision on a number of factual errors and misinformation.
First, your Sept. 28 editorial ("New fishing regulations in need of work") stated incorrectly the following: "the current regulatory structure, which limits the number of days fishermen can spend at sea, has already resulted in improved populations of most species." In fact, despite decades of effort to bring back some of the most productive fisheries in the world, 13 out of 20 groundfish stocks are overfished and/or continuing to experience overfishing.